WHEN DOCTORS CHANGE THEIR MINDS: Dealing With “Medical Reversal:”

The consequences of medical reversal are complicated. For starters, reversal challenges the notion that medicine is scientific — the premise that a century ago helped doctors to exorcise images of snake oil and hucksterism. But despite impressive progress, faith in medical leadership is currently at its lowest point in 50 years, a decline likely accelerated by a widespread sense that medical dogma often flip-flops.

On a practical level, reversals also mean accomplishing the near impossible: convincing people to abandon strongly-held convictions. Antibiotics have been used for ear infections for so long, and so pervasively, that years after studies showed they do more harm than good, parents and doctors continue to believe.

I don’t mind people changing their mind when new evidence comes in. It’s a bit rough, though, when they pretend to be infallible.