Paradigms Lost

"The propensity for medical errors has received much attention in recent years, but there is another shortcoming in clinical practice that is much larger in scope and circumstance,; i.e., resistance to change. Clinical medicine is littered with traditional practices that retain their popularity despite evidence that they are either ineffective, harmful, or inferior to newer alternative practices. This unjustified allegiance to tradition is found in all scientific disciplines. Each scientific discipline operates with a collection of conceptual schemes (called paradigms) that are widely accepted by the scientists in that discipline. Scientific research does not attempt to validate accepted paradigms, but instead focuses on the dictates or predictions of these paradigms. As a result, observations that are contrary to the predictions of accepted paradigms are considered a consequence of observer error or faulty experimental design, and are either ignored or discarded. The purpose of this book is to promote the recognition of faulty clinical paradigms. There are ten chapters, each dedicated to debunking a widely-accepted notion or practice in clinical medicine." --Paul Marino This book will be written for a medical audience and should sell across traditional specialty lines. For the first time in my publishing career, I can follow in the footsteps of Stuart Freeman, and declare that this proposal has no competition.