Marc Carter wrote: > > > I certainly don't want my doctor choosing a medicine on the basis of > anything other than what's been shown to work. Why should we expect > less of therapists?
Marc, I think you've hit the nail on the head, though inadvertently. There are many, many physicians out there who, although they scraped through their initial medical training, are not able (or wanting) to read and evaluate new medical research as it is published. They rely mainly on their past experience, discussions with colleagues, and intuition (just like many clinical psychologists). The pharmaceutical industry figured this out a long time ago and exploits it to their advantage by sending physicians advertising in the form of easy-to-read read promotional literature that is thinly disguised as research summaries. And they send them a lot of "samples" to give to their patients (to get them in the habit of prescribing the brand), and they throw luxurious promotional parties that are thinly disguised as confernces. Do I think that the original training of physicians is more scientifically rigorous than that of clinical psychologists? Of course, but I also think that medical science, in general, is more rigorous then psychological science as well, so the difference in training regimens is hardly surprising. The real issue here, I think, is that there is a clinical ethos (whether in psychology or medicine) that is orthogonal to (or perhaps even somewhat negatively correlated with) the research ethos (and lets be clear -- there are lots of superior researchers who, despite their great knowledge, would make horrible clinicians). It is relatively rare to find an individual who brings the best of both together. That is where the problems lies. Regards, Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [email protected] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ ========================== --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
