🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BNiyXB3w165w@stat.com> david@stat.com (David Dodell) writes:
>jamie@cs.sfu.ca (Jamie Andrews) writes:
>While there are problems in any profession, how do you expect a lay 
>person to know what I am doing is correct (I am a dentist) ... I have 4 
>years of school training plus 10 years of clinical experience.

     Sure, dentists know their subject very well... that doesn't
mean that they necessarily are able to be objective in
evaluating the worth of procedures that could net them big bucks
every time they do them.

     There is a growing public outcry about the number of
caesarean sections performed by obstetricians in North America,
as opposed to Europe (which has a better infant mortality rate).
And that's just the most obvious and easily measurable case of
money and convenience affecting diagnoses.  How do we know that
things like that are not going on in other branches of medicine?

>  Like any 
>profession, I expect to be judged by peers, not by some consumer council 
>that hasn't the foggiest idea what is entailed in completing a procedure.

     Well, what about a consumer council which is made up of
or advised by dentists who are independent of the dental
association?  That was the kind of thing I was talking about. 
Even a book written with a critical eye towards the more dubious
practices would be useful.  I'm sure that an independent
consumer advocate would not agree 100% with dental associations
on what is necessary or unnecessary.

>How do you know you aren't being ripped off?  Suggestions:
[suggestions for finding a "good dentist" within the framework
 of dental associations deleted]

     Look, the point is this.  I don't know about you, but when
I and my friends were trying to decide what to do when we were
finishing high school, the word was always "go into dentistry...
it's boring but you get pots of money."

     For all I know, the entire dental profession may be made up
of people who, when balancing treatment options, are more likely
to put weight onto "bucks for me" as a factor... if only
subconsciously.  How can I expect an organization of, by, and
for dentists to judge fairly on issues of "benefit for dentists"
vs. "benefit for patients"?

       Note that I said "for all I know".  For all I know, they
may all be selfless toilers for truth and light.  Beneath the
cloak of the dental association, we can't tell.  It would be
much better for both the dentists and the dental laymen for
there to be some independent evaluating body.

--Jamie.
  jamie@cs.sfu.ca
"God has a transfinite book of theorems in which the best proofs are written.
 And if he is well-intentioned, he gives it to us for a moment." -- Paul Erdoes