Doctors fail to practice what they preach--survey

As per study researchers, doctors are more likely to opt for a deadlier treatment with lesser side-effects for themselves if they are treating themselves for the same ailment.

While commenting on the study findings, lead researcher Peter Ubel from the Duke University, said in a press statement, “The advice you get could depend on whether your doctor is thinking about what you should do, or instead thinking about what he or she would do in your situation."

He added, "If patient’s found out, they would raise a lot of questions. It has nothing to do with moral. It has everything to do with human nature. The doctors don't even know they are behaving this way."

Research findings
To arrive at this intriguing conclusion, researchers analyzed responses of nearly 1000 American doctors. In the study, doctors were either asked to imagine themselves as patients and then recommend a treatment for themselves or were asked to recommend a treatment for a patient.

Researchers were shocked to find out that doctors recommended different treatment when they were asked to imagine themselves as patient.

As it turned out, doctors were more likely to recommend a treatment for themselves that carried higher risk of death but offered side-effect free survival, if treatment succeeded.

However, doctors are more likely to recommend those treatments/therapies that promise lower mortality rates but had higher side-effect rates, to their patients.

"Doctors may make particular decisions for themselves driven by powerful emotions that push them away from the right one. But when they make a recommendation to patients, logic may push harder than feelings,” wrote study authors.

In one survey, 38 percent of doctors, who were asked to think themselves as a patient, decided to go with deadlier treatment for themselves, but only 25 percent recommended that very same option to his/her patient.

"When you put on the doctor hat," it changes how you decide,” added Dr. Ubel.

Doctors should know more about patients
Medical experts believe that physicians try their best to make more logical and helpful recommendation for their patients by keeping their emotions at bay.

However, some believe at least doctors can consider their “patient's values, not [their] own values or what [they] think they should be doing as a physician."

The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society, appeared in the April 11 edition of the journal ‘Archives of Internal Medicine.'