BMJ opinion: Medical education - the tyranny of guidelines and the single best answer

Liyang Pan: Medical education - the tyranny of guidelines and the single best answer
Oct. 1st.

Simplification has a place in communicating medical knowledge. It is necessary to accommodate breadth, and groundwork should be laid before detail is learnt. The practise of medicine is impossibly intricate, requiring years of experience and learning, while guidelines are constructed by expert panels amalgamating mountains of (often conflicting) evidence to improve and standardise care. However, by not communicating that this knowledge is vastly simplified or potentially inaccurate, it becomes disingenuous and prohibitive. Bright inquisitive minds lose their propensity to challenge and to question, quashed by the onslaught of dogma and “facts.”

Perhaps it is ego or insecurity that prevents the words, “We don’t know, it’s a bit complicated,” from leaving doctors’ lips and landing in the ears of medical students or the wider public. In reality, I suspect that there are others, like myself, who would appreciate honesty rather than a falsely definitive answer.