Philosophy for Docs

I think that medical education should encompass more humanities modules, especially ones that cover subjects such as philosophy, which encourage critical thinking (more on this subject in KHI's medical education section, under strategic initiatives).  Mohammad Hassan, a medical student from the University of Liverpool has written an article, which uses medical examples to explain logical fallacies.  I thought it was a really good article so I reposted it below:

The word philosophy means “Love of Wisdom”. It’s the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language (taken from Wikipedia).  Philosophy is also involved in providing ethical frameworks that outline people’s lives and the tools that one can use to dissect arguments using reason and logic.

In medical school the topic of philosophy is often applicable to ethical principles that outline the day to day dealings of doctors and their patients. But there is much more to philosophy than that, I’m not saying that ethical principles are bad or anything. It’s that philosophy is incredibly undercooked in Medical schools and if taught properly it could aid medical students in critical thinking which in turn is useful in writing literature reviews, performing research and debating people.

My main theme is going to be “arguments” and how to differentiate between “bad” arguments and “good” arguments. A good argument is one that relies on reason, end of story. Sounds easy, you’d think everyone builds arguments on reason but that is not the case. A lot of arguments are fallacious, and do not appeal to reason. I’ll provide some examples, whilst not inclusive of all that critical thinking offers it serve as an introduction into the discipline.

Ad hominem argument

The word ad hominem means “the person”. So it is an argument against the person rather than what they’re saying. Unfortunately, this is very common even in day to day arguments. I’ll illustrate this fallacy in a medical context. 

Person A:  Prescribing medication that has not been proven to work is unethical and resource draining.

Person B: Look who’s talking! Weren’t you the one who cheated on his wife? It’s ironic that you’re talking about ethics.

Explanation: This is an ad hominem argument. It does not matter whether Person A cheated on his wife or not. That’s irrelevant to the argument offered.   

Ad nauseum argument

This means to repeat the argument again and again and again. Just to convince people of it rather than offering evidence of the argument’s validity. This is often encountered in advertisements for products in day to day life.

Person A:  Smoking causes heart disease. Smoking causes heart disease. Smoking causes heart disease.

Explanation: Even though smoking has been linked to coronary artery disease. This person presents no evidence to substantiate his argument. He’s just repeating it over and over again.

Strawman fallacy

This is a hard one to understand. What it means though is that your opponent diverts themselves from  the original argument and they create one of their own i.e. “a strawman” and then they proceed to destroy it.

Person A: Abortion should be legalized for the sake of the benefit of patients.

Person B: This legalization of murder shows complete disregard for the sanctity of life and will only lead to the corruption of society.

Explanation: the word “Abortion” does not equal “murder” and so the opponent diverted the argument from the original point and said opponent defeated the strawman.

False dichotomy fallacy

This is one when one offers two choices for one matter when there are actually many.

Person A: We can either have a PBL course or a traditional course. PBL is much better, you don’t want to be spoon fed now, do you?

Explanation: Person A didn’t offer us the third option which is an integrated course i.e. a mix of PBL and lectures thus creating a false dichotomy fallacy.

Appeal to ignorance

This is when a person tries to persuade us of something due to our ignorance regarding a topic.

Person A: Palates are the best treatment option for Meralgia paraesthetica.

Person B: Where is your proof for that?

Person A: There have been no studies conducted but that doesn’t mean it’s not the best treatment.

 Explanation: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But since Person A made that statement the burden of proof falls on them to back it up. If they can’t then we must not take them at face value.

Appeal to novelty

Person A: This device is brand new! The company says it uses the latest technology to get rid of varicose veins without the need of an operating theatre. It’s new so it must be good.

Explanation: You’ll see this in the medical world on numerous occasions. Just because a product is new doesn’t mean it’s good.  Where is your evidence?

Appeal to authority

This is when someone tries to win an argument by saying that their particular statement has been made by someone who is an authority and thus it should be taken at face value.

Person A: In the case of massive pulmonary embolus the patient might get a chest bruise. The consultant told me!

Person B: First of all, it’s an infarct, not a hemorrhage. Why would blood seep out? Second of all how would the blood seep out through all the muscular layers to the superficial layers of the chest?

Person A: Are you calling the consultant a liar? He told me that’s a sign of a PE!!!! 

Explanation: Just because someone is in a position of authority doesn’t mean they can make unsubstantiated claims. If anything, they’ve got a higher responsibility of backing their claims with evidence. 

That’s all I’m going to talk about for now. It just serves as an introduction to logic and reason. You can Google “logical fallacies” if you want to learn more.