Faith T. Fitzgerald, MD

Doctors, especially primary care doctors, love stories. We love hearing them from patients and telling them to one another. “Anecdotal learning” it’s called by some (somewhat derisively because it’s not science).

Guest Commentary

Many of my patients are confused. So aremany of my colleagues. Official bodies ofexperts barrage the media with pronouncementson what constitutes goodpreventive medicine: screening tests, eatingor abjuring certain foods, avoidance of exposures tosun or environmental hazards, "correct" behaviors. Althoughthey acknowledge that the data are, and alwayswill be, imperfect, these experts try their best to directpeople in the way that the evidence points-for now.