In a recent Sun op-ed, commentators G. Caleb Alexander and Elizabeth Keyes argue that the most effective way to use medications and mitigate their adverse effects occurs when doctors and patients are able to have a conversation about such drugs ("The best medicine: a good relationship with your doc," May 7).
Unfortunately, many factors now prevent that from happening. Most importantly, health data is almost always presented by medical journals and the press in terms of relative risk rather than in the more meaningful terms of absolute risk.
This is very confusing and precludes a sensible discussion of risks and benefits, since relative risks exaggerate benefit and minimize risk.
I believe that all data should be presented to patients as terms of absolute risks versus benefits, including the way newspapers such as The Sun write about medical data.
For instance, rather than saying that cholesterol medicines cut the risk of attack heart by 40 percent (relative benefit), we should be saying that three in every 100 patients may avoid a heart attack by being on cholesterol medications (absolute benefit), and that almost half of elderly people who take such medications experience adverse side effects (absolute risk).
Second, due to new ACA and Medicare reforms, doctors are being forced to adhere to clinical practice guidelines that often push them to prescribe medications and tests rather than discuss these issues with their patients.
The adherence to such guidelines also exhausts so much physician time that it is virtually impossible to have any meaningful conversation. The authors of the op-ed are correct: The discussion between doctor and patient, using actual numbers that are individualized to that patient, is essential to quality medical care. It is time that all doctors and patients demand that the press and the reformers help make that happen.
Andy Lazris, Ellicott City
The writer is a primary care physician in Columbia.