"Not Focused on Actually Treating Disease"

University of Massachusetts Medical School assistant professor of pediatrics Darshak Sanghavi provocatively contends that American medical care suffers from the fact that physicians leave school lacking basic skills or orientation required to treat patients effectively. He writes:

[M]edical education today fixates on acquiring knowledge that is largely unrelated to patient care....

Of course, a general foundation is important. However, the sheer abundance crowds out an important skill that matters in treating a patient: how to critically appraise published clinical trials. Few doctors ever read them. In effect, medicine has become a priesthood of practitioners who never review or learn to interpret the Bible to minister to their flock; they instead rely on secondhand wisdom. Or, worse, on Google.

This is an important article that merits a wide audience.