Pseudo-medicine flourished in a clinic where colleagues practiced it tolerated

Evidence

Encouraged by a senior physician at his former clinic and by professional development courses, he recommended it to his patients. Today he fears that his recommendation may have massively worsened the outcome of treatment for at least two cancer patients who died shortly after mistletoe treatment despite originally having a good prognosis. While now he sometimes faces harsh criticism from other physicians because he insists on science-based treatments, his adventures in pseudo-medicine at that time only once met with opposition from colleagues or superiors: when he wanted his clinic to pay the participation fee for a congress on psychedelic research, at which workshops on the “third eye” and on aura perception were offered, his head of department not only refused, but also canceled his already approved educational leave. However, the head of department himself liked to prescribe a specific type of homeopathy, and controversial procedures such as the Feldenkrais method were also used at the clinic. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 200

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to institutional tolerance of quackery — how professional environments normalize unscientific practice.