“Doctors are not gods. Doctors are human. They put their stethoscopes on one ear at a time,” says Peter Salgo, a clinical professor at Columbia University College of Surgeons. He hosts the PBS medical show Second Opinion, which commissioned the survey.
Studies show second opinions do make a difference:
• When women with breast cancer got second opinions, 30% received treatment or testing recommendations that differed in some way from initial advice, a University of Michigan study in 2003 found.
• Patients who came to Johns Hopkins University for treatment after a biopsy elsewhere arrived with a completely wrong diagnosis 1.4% of the time, according to a study in 1999 of 6,000 cases. Doctors found that one man diagnosed with cancer of the ear canal turned out to have a fungal infection.
A second opinion on diagnosis and treatment differs substantially from the first in at least 10% to 20% of cases in which people are facing “major, life-threatening, life-altering” conditions, says C. Martin Harris, executive director of e-Cleveland Clinic (eclevelandclinic.org), an online second-opinion service.
- Second opinion counts for a lot, USAToday.com, March 12, 2006.
2. Every one has a tale about an illness that turned out not to be what it seemed. These stories are interesting because they are rare. Most of us suffer colds and though everyone knows antibiotics can’t fix a virus, we want medicine to feel better. Doctors do their best to educate parents that some things just need to run a course and if we have misgivings about doctor’s orders, we ask for a second opinion or go to a specialist.
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