Trusting One’s Physician
Abstract
Trusting One’s Physician var callbackToken='505022EE4594C0D'; At the intersection of health, health care, and policy. GO Advanced Search » Health Affairs Follow us RSS Feed Twitter Facebook Audio Email Text Home About Archive Topic Collection Blog Briefs Theme Issues Subscribe Alerts Manage My Account Trusting One’s Physician William M. Glazer Glazer Medical Solutions Key West, Florida There is a limit of 300 words for letters to the editor. Health Affairs reserves the right to edit all letters for clarity, length, and tone. Letters can be submitted by e-mail, letters@healthaffairs.org , or the Health Affairs website, http://www.healthaffairs.org . Maran Wolston, afflicted with multiple sclerosis, describes losing trust in her physician on learning that he received payments from the pharmaceutical industry and her subsequent switch to another doctor (Dec 2011). Trust in one’s physician is certainly important, but arguably the basis of such trust is clinical competence. Wolston seems to substitute financial asceticism, never demonstrably correlated with patient outcomes, for competence as the basis of trustworthiness. She does not say whether the second physician attended a reputable school or has been sued for malpractice, nor does she mention any other training and performance indicators. More important, she doesn’t reveal whether he