Opinions R Us

          Medicine is an odd field. First you have people on the other side of the world doing entirely different things for diseases, some of which do work. Then you have local Experts, people here with degrees. There are also wonderful friends who share their experiences and ideas. 

           Then you have the unwashed masses of the public, many of whom are convinced you should try their ideas, and these come at you in the form of a fire hose.

          But whenever you have a big decision to make, we can all agree that a second opinion never hurts. Either it will open your eyes to a whole new idea, or it will confirm that you were already on the right track.

          What unsettles me is the word, “opinion.”  It’s as if this is all just nebulous speculating, all up for grabs by the person with the longest arms, say.

          Imagine you’re in math class. You work an equation, and you get the answer, 24. You now take it down the hallway to Professor Wiggins to see what she thinks. “Oh, no,” she says. “I get 16.”  WHAT?!  So you come back and ask Professor Jones to weigh in.  He says, “Nope. It’s 41.”  WHAT?!

          Surely there’s a finite answer, an indisputable truth when it comes to math, right? And no, don’t tell me about iffy equations from deep space that I won’t understand, which are full of contradictions.

          The point is that there ought to be an empirical answer, a decision about which no one can argue. I like that sort of solid footing when it comes to my health, you know? I don’t want people sliding all over the landscape and then “trying” some idea they heard about.

          So until someone comes up with an indisputable cure, we wander. We research.  We interview professionals and wonder if we should just calculate an average based on their responses.

Ultimately we hunt down someone we can trust. And then we take a leap of faith into the arms of someone we hope studied really hard in math class.

Fear not, math scores aside, you can enjoy my books right here.  And even find hundreds of short Youtube Mom  videos to share with your professors! Be sure to subscribe.