Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Views & Reviews Personal View

Let’s not turn elderly people into patients

BMJ 2009; 338 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.b873 (Published 04 March 2009) Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b873

Rapid Response:

Academic peer pressure

Dear Editor

A rarely mentioned problem in primary care is that of academic peer
pressure. GPs’ are subjected to poorly interpreted data from population
meta-analyses to drive the evidence on which they should base their day-to
-day practice. When they choose not to adopt an “evidence base” for such
practice; they are belittled and scorned by their peers. We would do well
to remember the cyclical nature of such evidence by recalling the
medicalisation of upper respiratory tract infections in previous
generations of patients and its ensuing over prescribing of antibiotics,
which we are now beginning to regret and to redress.

Competing interests:
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

05 March 2009
O James Sherifi
GP
Hardwicke House Group, Stour Street, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 2AY