Recently I have found that some of my more strongly held opinions have changed quite dramatically, and this has made me reassess what I knew and what I thought I knew.
Not long ago I attended a fascinating neuroscience lecture, and whilst there an opinion I held quite strongly was severely challenged. In order to explore the effectiveness of certain painkilling drugs and procedures on the brain, the pain pathways were illuminated to visibly reveal which ones were blocked. During the lecture it was demonstrated that if you took an inactive tablet stating, “this is a placebo”, and then gave it to a patient who was fully in the knowledge that it had no medicinal value, the same pain pathways would be blocked. I was well aware of the placebo effect, thinking it to be purely psychological, but was fascinated to see it demonstrated by hard science in such a way. It also caused me to wonder about other areas I have laughed off and been closeminded about.
Recently I met a Hungarian nurse who works for a Hungarian endodontist who told me of a link between root canal infection and hair loss. Normally I would be less than polite about such a notion, however, out of curiosity, I did some research. I found a case that supported this idea, and after speaking to others from similar backgrounds found that they all tended to say the same thing, agreeing that it’s a “well-known fact” that if you suffer from
sudden, unexplained hair loss and then have a root filling sometimes the hair comes back.
A bit more research into hair loss sites (purely for academic reasons) came out with similar information. It stated that the link between hair loss and root canal treatment was well understood by dentists and was being taught in dental schools. In a very short space of time, I have gone from sniggering to actually wondering if there might be something in this.
The issue of my close-mindedness, I believe, stems from my formal education. I have been taught, like many other specialists, by the mainstream American and Scandinavian dental schools. But if something has been taught outside of these widely recognised institutions, should that make it wrong, or nonscientific? The answer is that I just
don’t know.
We assume that medicine is always the same, and that if you go to France, America or Australia you’ll receive the same medicine for a liver condition for example, and undergo the same sort of treatment. But if that really were the case, what would be the point in attending all these international conferences? Everything would surely be the same.
Further, when our patients say: “I’ve got a heart condition and so am travelling to San Diego because there’s only one person in one specific clinic that can help me.” Should we be saying, “Oh, come on now it’s all the same,” or, “That’s really interesting, tell me more about it”?
In reality, there are two sorts of patients who travel: desperate patients with terminal diseases, or those looking for a treatment that is cutting-edge. But what does this actually mean to be cutting-edge? Does it mean tried and tested, or new and experimental? This is really a double-edged sword, because if you want evidence-based treatment, you can’t really have something that is cutting-edge because it won’t have been tried and tested. Sadly because of this there are some very good treatments that will never see the light of day.
Another example of the close-minded approach is the idea of treating a medical patient with leeches. If I was to suggest to a patient that they should come to Harley Street and be treated by a doctor using leeches it might raise an eyebrow or two. But of course it shouldn’t. Leeches have been used for almost every single ailment throughout history, occasionally successfully, and they are now often used in surgery. Medical grade leeches are very useful for mopping up excess blood, and so in reality rather than sniggering, they should be saying, “Oh that’s interesting. How does it work?”
Maybe homeopathy and acupuncture are also worth reevaluating? Homeopathy seems to work, but no one really knows why, and you often hear stories where people happily undergo painful and invasive procedures, with nothing but acupuncture for sedation. Sometimes you have to ask questions of why anyone would do this; but then sometimes it does work and because we don’t know why we choose to ignore it.
Thus at times we have to put aside our scepticism and realise that we don’t all come from the same American or
Scandinavian schools of education and that is it time to put away our cynicism and scepticism and to embrace life with an open mind.