Question of "Medical Ethics"..vs.."Doctor's Income"...What do you think????

[Stuart G]

Let us imagine this senerio....let us discuss it..

What if a new solution was found that would lift depression in 25 % of all cases. The solution was very very cheap, available to everyone and using/taking it was as simple as drinking....let us say.... ... 4 eight oz classes of water in the morning...and that the
solution was indeed just plain water.. ...now this was just water.. tap water....and it made people significantly healthier...

.If all the depressed people in the U.S.A drank this, they would be much healthier, and would go to the doctor 25 percent less...Psychiatrists would see their income reduced 25 percent ..Internists who depend on people who go on a regular schedule, would also see a reduction of 25 percent..maybe more...Here is the question:

Would doctors tell their patients about this discovery and encourage them to use it, if it indeed lessoned their income significantly?
Particularly psychiatrists..would they make sure their depressed patients drank their water, if no pharmacutical comapny was getting a cut, and the psychiatrists themselves would financially suffer, would they say to their patients..Did you drink your water today??? and really follow up on each person??? and the stuff really worked??? The patient says, "I don't need to come as often."...

Now what do you think the doctors would do??? It is just a question for discussion..nothing more..I often wonder about the doctors I've met..in many specialties...I just am not sure.. that is why I ask you...

[Hoyt]

1. I think some would push water. I think insurers should pay them based upon results

and not how many visits, tests, etc., are performed.

Of course, I don't think much is ad simple as drinking more water.

[Stuart G]

2. I think that this is true..

In some other countries, there are incentives to improve results..I don't know for sure..but that would change the playing field..
I also think that many strong forces would not want the playing field changed.

[bunnies]

3. I think suddenly water would be available...

by prescription only.

[KT2000]

4. + 100 n/t

[Purplehazed]

5. The doctors who promoted water.....

would be labeled quacks by the establishment for years. So called experts would drone on and on that there isn't enough scientific data to show that water is an effective cure. The reason the data isn't there is because there would be no one researching water if there was no profit in the end to pay for the research. Pharmaceutical companies would develop "artificial" water, patent it with an important sounding name and convince people that they they need the new product to lead a happier life.

It would be another example how the free market is not the answer to everything.

[Stuart G]

6. Well put....here is real example...proven ...are you ready???

There is this over the country drug, as cheap as can be...that in the 40s, one doctor saw in his practice, a lower incidence of heart disease, compared to what was expected. late 40s....so he tries to publicize this..no one listened. His practice...arthritis...the drug...asprin..(why asprin...because it is the pain reliever that he most often recommended then..why?..not many others..j)
.................well.....................on and on and on.................................no one ..................no one would be willing to test .................
asprin to see if it could help with heart disease................till........................Bayer Asprin Company......................................
.funded a double blind study in the mid 80s..and.................guess what...............asprin could lower incidence of returning heart attack patients..or something like that...........................

asprin is a proven blood thinner.........cheap, ...out there in the public domain...one cent a pill...but..
.................................this is how the free market works...just like you pointed out above........................................................

Oh............and this asprin thing isn't something I just made up to prove a point.......is it???

[CanSocDem]

7. Welcome...

...to the reality of a free-market medical industry. There was a study a couple of years ago that claimed a high percentage of doctors knowingly used placebo's presumed ly because they worked.

.

[Iwasthere]

8. Greed!

There are fewer doctors now that have high morals. Doctors have very few hours of preventitive and nutritial classes in their many years of college. Nutritional and natural solutions (that DO work) are discounted as voodoo, often as a result of deliberate ignorance. Doctors do NOT want to see natural solutions, big Pharm industry has their hands tied. They could lose their practice. We are on our own everybody. Buy up your heirloom seeds now and protect them. I feel evry sorry for my children and grandchildren. Bush once said, "Climate change? what does it matter? Jesus is coming".

[Warpy]

9. Oh, please, they'd all tell their patients about it first thing!

I don't suppose you know the kind of treadmill most docs are on, do you? Hospital rounds starting at 7 AM, office hours from 8:30-5:30, calls to insurance company bean counters, calls to check up on labs they ordered for their patients in the hospital, on call every third night or so in case a patient goes sour (and they do go sour at night most often).

If something would lift 25% of that workload, they'd jump at it.