Medical Doctors as Researchers Humor… In My Clinical Experience…

While discussing epidemiology and drug policy with to an MD who works in the US federal government, he mentioned that he’s trained as a clinician, not in research.

I joked back that I wish most of the MDs who write for medical journals were clearer on the distinction, and he told the following quasi-joke:

Do you know what doctors mean when they say “In my clinical experience…” ? When a doctor says “in my clinical experience…” that means they’ve handled one case related to the matter. If they say “in my long clinical experience” that means two cases. And if a doctor says “In case, after case, after case…“, that means three cases total.

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