Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

We were taught in medical school that about 50% of what we learned was wrong #functionalmedicine

17 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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Short spoken excerpt from Aaron Hartman, MD arguing that much medical knowledge is uncertain: he recalls being taught that roughly half of what was learned in medical school may be wrong, cites rapid growth of medical literature (doubling ~18 months in 1996), and references a study (Ioannidis / PLOS) claiming about half of clinical research findings are later found to be false—raising the problem of how clinicians find a "North Star" for decision-making.

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When I was in medical school, I was taught that half the 50% of information I learned in medical school is wrong. We just didn't know which half. So that was I learned that early on. Like in 1996, medical information is doubling every 18 months. Just think about research articles. It's growing so fast. If you're not a voracious learner, you can't keep up. And there's also, there's other thing. Dr. Ioannes and Pos published this years ago, and PLOS is the largest online medical journal in the world. And he looked at studies and showed that half of all clinical research published clinical research findings are later found to be false. So if half of what you learn is wrong, you just know which half. And half the published stuff, which could be the same number, just said differently. Then all of a sudden, what is your guiding North Star that helps you figure out what to do.