Orthopodcast 8 - Surgery: The Ultimate Placebo

If a peer or a more senior colleague is doing surgery for which there is no evidence, what would or should you do?

The drive for professional recognition puts tremendous pressure on surgeons to engage in questionable practices…who and how should we illuminate these?

In this podcast, Professor Ian Harris, an Australian orthopaedic surgeon and academic, provides us with a view that some surgery may be ineffective, or as effective as placebo. Much has been written recently about ineffectiveness and overtreatment in modern medicine; Professor Harris links this with the topic of placebos, and applies it to surgery.

This 15-minute Orthopodcast interview with the author explores how to stop the surgical malaise of ignoring good science and how to handle the situation when faced with such ignorance.