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Metus comments on Open thread, 18-24 March 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion

1 Post author: David_Gerard 18 March 2014 12:26PM

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Comment author: Metus 19 March 2014 07:04:40PM 11 points [-]

How well do medical doctors fare in terms of health outcomes compared to people of similar social economic status and family history? Is there a difference between research doctors and practising doctors? What about nurses, is there a notable difference too?

This question is posted within the context of "how big is the effect of medical knowledge on personal health?" and the assumption that medical doctors should represent the upper end of the spectrum. Other medical professionals should represent data points in between. All this together should hint at the personal use of medical knowledge in some kind of unit.

Comment author: Jayson_Virissimo 19 March 2014 09:42:18PM *  15 points [-]

This study seems to go quite a ways towards answering your question:

Among both U.S. white and black men, physicians were, on average, older when they died, (73.0 years for white and 68.7 for black) than were lawyers (72.3 and 62.0), all examined professionals (70.9 and 65.3), and all men (70.3 and 63.6). The top ten causes of death for white male physicians were essentially the same as those of the general population, although they were more likely to die from cerebrovascular disease, accidents, and suicide, and less likely to die from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pneumonia/influenza, or liver disease than were other professional white men...

These findings should help to erase the myth of the unhealthy doctor. At least for men, mortality outcomes suggest that physicians make healthy personal choices.

-- Frank, Erica, Holly Biola, and Carol A. Burnett. "Mortality rates and causes among US physicians." American journal of preventive medicine 19.3 (2000): 155-159.

You may also find this worth checking into:

The doctors had a lower mortality rate than the general population for all causes of death except suicide. The mortality rate ratios for other graduates and human service occupations were 0.7-0.8 compared with the general population. However, doctors have a higher mortality than other graduates. The lowest estimates of mortality for doctors were for endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases, diseases in the urogenital tract or genitalia, digestive diseases and sudden death, for which the numbers were nearly half of those for the general population. The differences in mortality between doctors and the general population increased during the periods.

-- Aasland, Olaf G., et al. "Mortality among Norwegian doctors 1960-2000." BMC public health 11.1 (2011): 173.

EDIT: I added a second study and cleaned up the citations.

Comment author: Metus 19 March 2014 10:04:58PM 2 points [-]

This is spot on! And a great starting point for further research. Thank you.

Comment author: TylerJay 20 March 2014 03:36:27PM *  0 points [-]

Somewhat related, I remember reading an article claiming that Doctors are more likely to opt out of life-prolonging treatment. Not really well-cited, but seemed like an interesting claim. That end-of-life hospital care is so bad that they would choose not to do it.

Link

Comment author: bbleeker 21 March 2014 01:09:23PM 1 point [-]

Sorry for nitpicking, but don't you mean 'doctors are more likely to opt out'?

Comment author: TylerJay 26 March 2014 03:40:14AM 0 points [-]

Yup, that's what I meant. Fixed. Thanks.

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