Friends of Science in Medicine: What's the Agenda?

[Post moved to other blog.]

The more research I do, the more amazed I am at the Agenda of "Friends of Doctors and Maintaining the Status Quo".

• They are a thinly disguised branch of a very shady reactionary group.  Most, if not all, the 'Executive' of FoSiM have garnered awards from "Australian Skeptics Inc". [More on A.S. Inc's machinations and their real politck.]

• "Inconvenient Truths" are simply ignored or edited out by FoSiM. Would you expect less of these folk with their doctrinal attitude and blinkered views?
• In "Doctors, Nurses Often Use Holistic Medicine for Themselves", it is reported that in the USA around 25% more Healthcare Professionals than the general population (76% vs 63%). Should as the FoSiM stance implies, they all be drummed out of the Profession? Or do they know what they doing and actually look after themselves in the best possible ways?

• Fundamentals are ignored by FoSiM:
• "Show us the Data!" FoSiM are violently and implacably opposed to "CAM" (presumably Complementary and Alternative Medicines), roundly criticise and vilify therapies they do not approve of and loudly call for all Alternative Medicine/Therapies to be justify themselves with EBM and RCT, so beloved by FoSiM. Only no data are provided to suggest this is warranted, only opinion and non-peer reviewed articles. Compared to Establishment Medical and Hospital practice and outcomes, are alternative methods etc unsafe enough to be called into question? No data, no case...
   
• This is an argument first and foremost about Patient Safety, then Quality of Care and lastly about Effacy of treatment, therapies, medicines. But there is no definitive data for the outcomes of Establishment Medicine, despite them consuming consuming 10-15% of National GDP in mature, western economies to use as a baseline in discussing Efficacy.
    
• Science is not Practice. Substantially more than a few studies is needed to convert some Theory or data into reliable, repeatable Real World Practice. We know this, because it is being done intentionally and deliberately by at least one significant Healthcare System in the world, Intermountain Healthcare, Utah.

There is a well-known, perfect model for how to create an Industry-wide Quality and Safety Culture, in one of the most cut-throat profit-driven businesses ever: Aviation.

• A recent piece in The Journal of Patient Safety, "An NTSB for Healthcare, Learning from Innovation: Debate and Innovate or Capitulate"  by both experienced, highly-competent Aviators and Medicos makes a very strong case for in both describing the systemic problems (the figures on waste, fraud and over-servicing are horrifying) and for outlining a solution.

Adopt what is known to work in Aviation, and has been proven to be Cheaper, Safer and Better on every metric for coming up to 2 decades by Intermountain Healthcare with their "Do it Right, First Time" Quality approach.

Isn't it odd that the self-appointed, self-proclaimed "experts in all things Medical", the FoSiM, haven't suggested this approach nor flagged that our Hospitals and Medical system are far from World's Best Practice.

Instead of seeking to improve their own failed Profession, they are seeking to attack and discredit "The Competition", or at least those that they can identify and target.