How can I tell if a doctor is a quack?

Unfortunately, frauds are as numerous and effective today as they were a hundred years ago. In Nigeria a lot of people in the hospital are not actually doctors and they address themselves with so many strange names like, “ I am medical person”.”I am a health worker”. the truth is that if you work in the hospital you will have a designation, like I am a nurse , I am a doctor , I am a pharmacist and all this are professions  that are recognized in the hospital not blanket positions like “medical person”. So the next time you are in the hospital and there is someone you are talking to always ask what their designation is. Here are some tips to identifying impostors

He Has Insufficient Qualifications and is Disconnected

• The doctor does not have a Bachelor’s degrees in medicine and surgery or Doctorate of Medicine (MD) degree from an accredited university. Degrees from non-accredited or non-existent schools are nearly worthless. Having a PhD in nutrition, BSc, ND, DC, or AP degree does not make him a medical doctor.
• Ask him about is Medical school experience, this experience is what really shapes your life as a doctor and it’s an experience you always want to share with whoever cares to listen
• The doctor loudly touts awards and honors you have never heard of. Anyone can invent an award, give it to himself, and then splash the award across his website.
• The doctor is a loner, meaning that he is not visibly connected to a hospital, medical clinic, group practice, or other MD’s. Even if the doctor is well connected to non-MD associates and believers, he is still a loner if he is not connected to other MD’s.
• You found out about the doctor through online comments, a post in a discussion forum, or an unsolicited email (this is known as spam and is in fact illegal).

He Contradicts Consensus

• The doctor’s views do not match basic science facts found in college textbooks.
• The doctor’s views do not match the consensus among scientists as found on government websites, university websites, and top peer-reviewed academic journals.
• The doctor admits he is outside of mainstream medicine, attacks mainstream medicine, or attacks the scientific method.
• The doctor claims that one organ controls your entire body, and he’s not talking about your brain. He claims your tongue, eyes, hands, or feet can be “mapped”  and control every other part of your body. If your feet really controlled your body, you would get “brain” damage every time you stubbed your toe, and double-amputee Olympians would be dead (they have no feet).
• Accepting the doctor’s claims requires believing in a global conspiracy to suppress the truth. Global medical conspiracies don’t work because doctors also get sick and therefore have a strong personal motivation to not suppress effective treatments.

He Displays Bias

• The doctor is trying to sell you his book or  on his website or even self-published his book. If his book is worth reading, a major publisher will publish and market the book and not the doctor himself. A doctor writes a self-published and self-marketed book when his ideas do not survive the scrutiny of peer-review.
• The doctor is trying to directly sell you pills or medical devices. It’s the pharmacist’s job to sell medicine and the doctor’s job to prescribe. Prescribing and selling at the same time creates a biasing conflict of interest.
• The doctor wants you to buy basic items, like Vitamin C, directly from him, claiming that his product is somehow different.
• The doctor’s therapy involves long-term dependence on the doctor, such as office visits every other day for the next year.

He Uses Misleading or Poor Language

• The doctor makes exaggerated claims. For instance, his pills will completely cure you, keep you from ever getting sick again, give you a super-model’s body, or increase your IQ.
• The doctor is promoting a single product or therapy that he claims can cure dozens of different diseases.
• The doctor appeals to your emotions with statements like “Wouldn’t it be empowering  to run a marathon next year? With my therapy, you can!”. Honest scientists present dry facts and let you decide how they will effect you emotionally.
• The doctor uses poor spelling and grammar.
• The doctor uses common scientific language in non-standard or over-zealous ways. For instance, infrared photon thermography simply means a heat image. Infrared photons that are emitted by the body just show what parts of the skin are warm. They have nothing to do with tumors, nerve activity, chemical balance, quantum states, or cosmic flow under the skin.
• The doctor uses overly-broad legal disclaimers in small print; using language such as “this therapy is not intended to prevent, detect, or treat disease”. If the doctor does not intend to prevent, detect, or treat disease, then why would you ever hire him as your doctor? In reality, he hopes you will never see this small print. He just puts it there to avoid getting sued for his fraud.
• The results that the doctor promises are vague and unmeasurable, such as increased “focus”, “peace”, “balance”, “wholeness”, “detoxification”, “purity”, or “revitalization”. Using vague promises means it is hard for you to determine if the doctor’s therapy is working, and it is therefore hard for you to detect his fraud.
• The doctor claims his therapy comes from a mystical-sounding source such as India, China, Peru, or the Hopi tribe. If Chinese medicine is so effective, why are there so many miserably sick and impoverished Chinese peasants?
• The doctor conceals basic facts that would undermine his case, such as the fact that vitamins are found abundantly in food.
• The doctor uses the phrases “western medicine” and “eastern medicine”. In reality, scientific medicine is practiced all over the world: east, west, north and south. The more correct phrases are “scientific medicine” and “non-scientific medicine”. Both are practiced in China.
• The doctor talks as if “natural” automatically equals “good for your body”. Nicotine, alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, cyanide, arsenic, lead, asbestos, radon, poison ivy, hemlock, and death cap mushrooms are all natural. Similarly, E. coli, staph, salmonella, anthrax, HIV, herpes, and snake venom are also natural, as are wolves, spiders, scorpions, lightning bolts, floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

He Lacks Concrete Scientific Evidence

• The doctor relies heavily on personal testimonials to try to convince you his methods are effective. Anyone can pay a street beggar five dollars to invent a testimonial. That does not make what he is saying true. Even if the testimonials are given by authentic patients, they are non-experts and their opinion is therefore of little value.
• The doctor relies heavily on claims of his treatment being “ancient” as evidence of its efficacy. The ancient Egyptians thought the brain did little and could be discarded. The fact that the Egyptians are ancient does not automatically make their beliefs about the brain true.
• The doctor relies heavily on the word of a famous scientist or movement founder as evidence of its efficacy. Linus Pauling may have a Nobel prize for work on atomic bonds, but the claims of his mega-vitamin nutrition movement still fail to match experimental results.
• The doctor ascribes healing properties to everyday objects that are scientifically known to be ordinary, such as pretty crystal , magnets, bracelets, or water.
• The doctor treats his patients solely over the phone or email, instead of doing a physical exam, running lab tests, or examining medical scans.
• The doctor’s therapy relies on energies, forces, or fields that are not scientifically detectable.

He Engages in Non-Scientific Behavior

• The doctor diagnoses every patient he sees with the same disease. He likely does this because it is his favorite disease or is the only disease he knows anything about.
• The doctor encourages you to join his movement, advertise his treatments, or crusade for his cause. In our day of instant communication, treatments that actually work need little help from crusaders.
• The doctor requires you to join a multilevel marketing scheme and sell his products in order to be treated.
• The doctor requires you to pay money to take part in a trial of a new treatment.
• The doctor treats any who question his methods as enemies. He attacks, denounces, or sues anyone who shines light on the shortcomings of this treatment.
• The doctor is overly focused on appearances.  He always wears a nicely pressed lab coat and draws attention to his scientific-looking equipment that appears to be rarely used.
•  
•  Dr Tango is Consultant Physician with facts and Figures Email- caremed001@gmail.com Blackberry Pin - 74282d21.Follow us on twitter @Care_Med
•