Why Do Surgeons Continue to Perform Worthless Operations?

Every year, hundreds of thousands of patients undergo unnecessary, unhelpful, and even painful procedures that may result in catastrophic complications. Well, the clinical practice guidelines are at least sticking to the evidence this time—not only saying don’t do it, but also that the procedures shouldn’t even be offered to patients since they’re all harm without benefit. In that case, why are they still among the most common surgeries in the world? Because of a powerful logical fallacy on the part of surgeons and patients alike called post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for “after this, therefore because of this.” The fallacy assumes that, because one event followed another, the first caused the second. Imagine how pervasive this is in all of medicine. Imagine you go to a doctor, a surgeon, a chiropractor, a physical therapist, a witch doctor, or a crystal healer and get your pill or potion, or your chakras shocked, then, a month later, you’re cured. You can imagine thinking, “Wow! That co-pay was totally worth it. Thank goodness for modern medicine / that scalpel / the crystal healing!” Well, without science, placebos, or do-nothing control groups, you simply cannot know if something had a positive effect, a negative effect, or even no effect at all. You might have gotten better even faster without the treatment (or the charlatan). That’s why we have science. When it comes to these operations, the surgeons who keep performing them have an attitude of “science, schmience.” (That is, unless the science called for more surgeries, in which case they’d be totally on board.) It kills me that, deep down, they know this, too. Think of that study investigating whether surgeons treat their patients like they’d treat themselves. It kills me that surgeons were significantly more likely to push rotator cuff surgery on others than they would do it on themselves. You can imagine that some surgeons may think that if they don’t do the surgery, another surgeon will, so they might as well perform the operation and make the money. They might arrogantly consider themselves to be more skilled and be convinced they’ll cause less harm. Maybe, but they’re still lying to patients and hurting them. Let me repeat that quote from the editor in chief of an orthopedic surgery journal: “Every year, hundreds of thousands of patients undergo unnecessary, unhelpful, painful procedures. A subset of those patients will experience serious and sometimes catastrophic complications.” We accept risk when there’s benefit, but all risk and no benefit? That’s assault. If all the treatments are bunk, then that makes it all the more important to prevent rotator cuff degeneration in the first place and treat at least part of the underlying cause, which brings us to some good news, in my next video. This is the fourth video in a six-part series. If you missed the previous ones, see: • Steroid Injections for Shoulder Pain Relief May Do More Harm Than Good (https://nutritionfacts.org/video/ster...) • Chiropractic Manipulation, Physical Therapy, and Exercise Therapy for Shoulder Pain Relief (https://nutritionfacts.org/video/chir...) • Rotator Cuff Surgery May Cause More Shoulder Pain Than Relief (https://nutritionfacts.org/video/rota...) Stay tuned for Preventing Rotator Cuff Shoulder Pain with Diet (https://nutritionfacts.org/video/prev...) and Frozen Shoulder (Adhesive Capsulitis): What It Is and How to Prevent and Treat It (https://nutritionfacts.org/video/froz.... You may be interested in my new book How Not to Hurt (https://nutritionfacts.org/book/how-n..., available now for preorders. (All proceeds received from book sales are donated directly to charity.) New subscribers to our e-newsletter always receive a free gift. Get yours here: https://nutritionfacts.org/subscribe/. Have a question about this video? Leave it in the comment section at http://nutritionfacts.org/video/why-d... and someone on the NutritionFacts.org team will try to answer it. Want to get a list of links to all the scientific sources used in this video? Click on Sources Cited at https://nutritionfacts.org/video/why-.... You’ll also find a transcript and acknowledgements for the video, my blog and speaking tour schedule, and an easy way to search (by translated language even) through our videos spanning more than 2,000 health topics. Captions for this video are available in several languages; you can find yours in the video settings. View important information about our translated resources: https://nutritionfacts.org/translatio...