I'm afraid I see literally no way to evaluate this sort of comment based on its merits. Given you're anonymous here, any chance you could link to well-known/credible professionals who agree with you?
What do you consider a well-known, credible medical professional? A Harvard professor? I happen to have worked with world-renowed clinical researchers, and I have nothing but disrespect for their scientific abilities. I do however, value their clinical teachings very much, and I am thankful for the training they provided in the clinics.
I am frankly not motivated enough to look for papers about it, and I clearly speak from my own experience. I do know that the proportion of research considered as valid is very difficult to estimate, though. If you are interested in "evidence-based medicine", I am sure you know PubMed and related websites. At this point however, I find it extremely difficult to believe any medical paper containing statistics.
http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(16)00147-5/abstra...
What the OP is referring to isn't unique to MDs, it's endemic to much biomedical research today. I blame it on lack of tenure protections and science-as-university-income, which in many cases ultimately stems from indirect costs charged to federal grants, or the current grant system.
For me, the concerns mentioned in this thread about scientific research and MD training in particular, bring up bigger issues pertaining to the culture of hierarchy in medicine and its implications for quality of care and competition in service provision and training models.
- deficiencies in the reporting methodology https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3554513/
- a bit of incorrect retraction https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899113/
- a fun one on systematic reviews https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4785311/
- regarding missing data https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4748550/
- a paywalled abstract about power https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26677241
- on sample size calculations https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25523375
- aaand a fun one on selection bias https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4566301/
All found within 10 minutes...
We could go on like that for hours with this sizing contest. I do not expect to convince you. You will, if you put the time and effort into it, find other studies saying the opposite (although being less sexy for publishers, they will be harder to find). If you are somewhat knowledgeable in the field of statistics, please take a look a the numbers, as I am quite sure you will find them appalling (19% of study population missing outcome data and 27.9% underpowered studies, anyone?)
http://www.healthy-eating-politics.com/usda-food-pyramid.htm...
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/14/ask-well-how-many-e...
Evidence based medicine. An idea that is really less than 50 years old, and still strugging to gain widespread acceptance.
It seems to me that the problem here is that our industry, built around throwing expensive drugs at problems, paying for results and lobbying governments and insurance companies is ripe for abuse of "science".
That said, "pure" science is about more than published papers: it's about taking the data and observations you have and constructing the most likely theories and explanations around the observed evidence. If we had a capability to separate funding (and emotions) from research we might be able to produce good results given enough open data (which is itself a challenge).
As an uninformed software developer, I think medicine is a field where machine learning based tools will shine: ethical ("hippa") issues aside, we eventually might be able to feed all observed data, from diagnosis to results years after treatment into computer systems which might be able to make sense of the data and allow us to construct conclusions of the data unbiased by personal and business incentives.
Obviously our current eco-policital climate is strewn with roadblocks, but just wanted to put it out there that science doesn't have to lead us down this path if done right.
It's also a flawed notion. There has been a concerted push in the last 50 years, but applying the scientific method to medicine is considerably older. Koch's Postulates, for example, were published in 1890.
Evidence-based Medicine is applying the scientific method to the practice of medicine.
Please read the link before spreading misinformation.
You could ask for clarification before simply assuming I don't know what I'm talking about.
Furthermore, I'd suggest that understanding disease and understanding the practice of medicine are far more entangled than your division suggests.
I pretty much literally facepalmed; luckily she interpreted that as agreeing with her...