Dr. Joshua John-Ram Schacter argues that fear drives clinicians to make overly conservative choices instead of following evidence. A cardiologist was shocked a patient got testosterone, believing an FDA black box warning still applied, but the FDA had removed it five months prior.
I got a call from a cardiologist two days ago. You got my patient on testosterone. I was like, you're welcome.
It's because we create fear. I think, you know, the treatments of our patients oftentimes are dictated by our most recent fear. Like, we heard this guy got sued over this thing or this, you know. And so rather than look at the evidence and as doctors, as clinicians, as people who are providing care, rather than do the right thing for people and be courageous, we are fearful and we shut down and we say, oh, well. And we also don't keep up. So the FDA removed that black box warning, like, five months ago. I got a call from a cardiologist two days ago. You got my patient on testosterone. I was like, you're welcome. He goes. He goes, well, the FDA says you can't do that. I said, no, you can look that up. They removed that black box warning five months ago.
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