Give Dr. Oz his due
The famous physician deserves professional courtesy, not personal attacks, says a friend
Agood friend of mine, a superb physician and a mentor, is under attack. I call him by his first name, Mehmet. You probably know him as Dr. Oz.
Last week, in a letter to the dean of the faculties of health sciences and medicine at Columbia University, 10 doctors accused Dr. Oz of showing “disdain for science and for evidence-based medicine,” and of manifesting “an egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments and cures in the interest of personal financial gain.”
The doctors are demanding that Dr. Oz be removed from his faculty position at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.
They are conducting a smear campaign — one that is unwarranted, unfair and unprofessional.
I’ve known Mehmet Oz for over a decade. A mutual friend introduced us when Mehmet was “merely” a gifted cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon. That was before he went into television, before Oprah Winfrey recognized that he was not only an excellent doctor but also a very talented communicator. Before he became famous as “Dr. Oz.”
We became close friends, and he became a mentor — not on the clinical side (I am an ophthalmologist), but on the consumer engagement side. Over the years I’ve learned a tremendous amount from Mehmet about effective means of communica- tion in health engagement.
It’s been quite a challenge because, as physicians, we have never been very adept at engaging patients once they leave our offices. But Dr. Oz cracked the code. He developed a knack for combining health content with excellent communications skills. Viewers watched, and they learned.
This is the art of medicine: communication with patients. It is an art that is not taught well, if at all, in medical school. It is an art that Dr. Oz has mastered.
The science of medicine is a different matter. The science compels us to conduct clinical trials to determine what works and what doesn’t in treating illness. But any doctor will tell you that the most humbling part of medical practice is the struggle that all of us go through daily — the fact that we can do everything right and still have everything go wrong. Despite all we know from clinical trials, textbooks and research, we often find ourselves practicing science to combat forces of nature over which we have no control.
When this happens, when conventional means fail, physicians often try other options. No practitioner follows the science 100 percent. And over time each of us develops his own protocol. Every one of us has been in situations where we depend more on our wisdom and gut instinct than on hard data alone.
It’s not that we’re conducting wild experiments; it’s that the practice of medi- cine is always evolving, and so are our treatment protocols. The accepted science is constantly being challenged because our understanding of conditions is also evolving .
Yes, some of Dr. Oz’s ideas may be unconventional. But each and every one of us has trained under physicians who continue to evolve their practices based on their years of experience, which may be contrary to what textbooks tell us.
And let’s keep in mind that one of the things we’re also taught in medical school is that the doctor-patient relationship is sacred. We all have the prerogative of telling our patients what we think is the right path of treatment.
So if you disagree with Dr. Oz’s recommendations, that’s fine. Tell your patients. It’s fair to criticize. That’s par for the course in medicine.
But do it professionally — not in the form of a public personal attack — because the forum for resolving clinical approaches to treatment should be conducted through traditional science, not in editorials.
Mehmet Oz is a man of the highest integrity who has broken down barriers in health care that no one else could have. It is our responsibility as physicians to honor that.
In this regard, Dr. Oz has no peer.