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I was listening to a radio talkback program with a doctor that has a regular weekly health segment. A caller was asking about his high cholesterol and statin drugs. The doctor’s response was that the high cholesterol result was not as important as calcium scoring. Calcium scoring or calcium scans of the coronary arteries are a more accurate predictor of coronary artery disease. However, doctors continue to test for cholesterol and unnecessarily place patients onto statin drugs. The caller went on to ask “why then is my doctor still focussing on cholesterol and recommending a statin drug?” Because “Many conservative doctors are resistant to change.” That was a “wow” moment for me.

When presenting current research relating to a patient or child’s condition, I occasionally hear the patient or parent say “Why doesn’t my doctor know about this?” Simply because doctors rarely learn of new discoveries at conferences or through journals. Most doctors rely on being kept up to date by information disseminated by pharmaceutical companies. A review of past medical discoveries shows that acceptance of new ideas has been met with fierce resistance by the medical community. If a doctor refuses to listen to the research that is presented to them, then maybe it is time to find another doctor that will.

I was recently reading an article on ADHD, “Who Is Diagnosing All These Kids With ADHD?” The article was commenting on a recent study into ADHD diagnosis, “Diagnostic Experiences of Children With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder”, which provided 2014 data on ADHD diagnosis. I was interested to read that “family members were overwhelmingly the first individuals who had been concerned about whether the child might have ADHD. However, for approximately one third of the children who received a diagnosis after age 6 years, someone at school or daycare was the first to raise concern.” “Parents reported that in 89.9% of the cases, behavior rating scales or checklists were used for diagnosis.” I actually found this amazing that in this day and age we are still diagnosing children as ADHD solely based on “behaviour ratings” and “checklists”.