Doctor's Advice

Ever since the story of medicine began to move from obscure technical journals into the popular press, doctors and newsmen have clashed over what medical news was fit to print. As a result, the feud has often broken out in a rash of errors and ill feeling. To clear up the sore spots between physicians and reporters, Dr. Francis T. Hodges, a general practitioner who also edits the California-Western Academy Monthly, wrote out a prescription in the current issue.

Newspapers are often no more guilty of inaccurate reporting, said Dr. Hodges, than doctors are of making the wrong diagnosis. When a reporter does make a mistake in a medical story, the real cause may be a doctor's refusal to cooperate. Medical men often treat the press "as despised menials, or the morbidly curious," give the brushoff to the reporter who is "merely attempting to quote you accurately."

On the other hand, said Dr. Hodges, medicine has a legitimate complaint about premature reporting. "Newspapers latch on to a morsel of partly cooked medical news and serve it up to the reading public in its raw state. Your new 'cancer cure' may be simply a study of enzymatic action on malignant cells until the eager-beaver writer gets wind of it. By the time he tries to present you to the readers as a latter-day Pasteur, your medical society is ready to drum you out as a snake oil salesman."

For all these ills, said Dr. Hodges, "there is a pretty reliable cure. First, call the press in. Tell them your story. Let them speak to a living doctor and let them quote him as a flesh-and-blood human being, not an anonymous spokesman for the local medical society. Give them a chance to ask questions, and answer them intelligently. Don't consider that medical matters are necessarily secret matters. Take time to spell words out when you must use words unknown to the public. Medical practice is for the public and, in effect, belongs to the public. It is entitled to reasonable public scrutiny."

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