We do not treat “populations” and do not perform clinical studies. We treat patients one at a time, we read and appreciate the diligent work provided by medical researchers to determine “most effective treatments” and cannot imagine every physician in the country becoming his or her own “researcher” just because they “have the data.”

The inherent suggestion that every doctor in the country will begin to somehow to conduct research based on his practice’s limited outcomes experience is only surpassed by the fallacy that insurance carriers will be able to amalgamate this data into meangingful clinical protocols for their enrollees.

The irony is that the academic physicians have not seen this as a greater threat to their role in researching and developing treatment protocols. Perhaps they are less concerned about where to data originates and more interested in the epidemiological significance i.e. more patients = more data = more significance, despite the fact that most of the “controls” and even validity may well be totally lacking from this “more data”.