Ask Your Doctor. I think not.

My annual physical is coming up in a few weeks, and I have been dutifully keeping a list of medications that I should ask my doctor if they are right for me. She hates that part.

Until recently, I had subscribed to the old fashioned notion that instead of asking my doctor if a certain drug was right for me, that my doctor should tell me. That was until I took part in a marketing study, for a medication which is to be a competitor to one I take.

The perky moderator herded a dozen old people into a cheap conference room. Then she explained the benefits of a new wonder drug and left us to pontificate on how the wording of their ads should be changed, the type made larger, what breed of cute puppy pictures should be used. You get the point.

At the end of the hour, our perky moderator went around the room and asked each person, would they ask their own doctor about Product X. You should have heard it. Jacob the Liar wouldn't have stood a chance. Doctors phones were going to ring that very afternoon, from patients demanding this not yet released wonder drug.

Then they got to me. "Toad, how likely are you to ask your doctor about Miracle Cure?" "Not so very much I replied." You'd have thought I was asking for more gruel.

Can you tell us why?, ask Ms. Perky.

"Because in my heart of hearts I know I couldn't answer my doc's first question, which would be Why is this better than what you currently take?" That then opens me up to all sorts of harassment. Is it cheaper, is the dosage better, how does it interact with what else you take, etc. etc. etc.? I couldn't answer any of those questions, so having no credibility, I'd feel beaten as a rented mule.

As soon as the fans began rumbling, class was immediately dismissed. Made $150 though.

Toad