Discussion Board

It is very disappointing that Dr. McDougall did not have a better turnout at his talk geared to physicians in Chico. I think it was an excellent idea and I hope that those who did attend got something out of it. I hope he does not give up on this idea, though. Offering continuing-education credits to physicians is an excellent way of getting a point across (that's what all the drug companies do!). Maybe he just needs to try some other options, such as offering an online or DVD presentation that can be done at the physician's convenience, or offering credit for the Advanced Study Weekends or other forums that are already in place. Maybe physicians would be interested in hearing the information in shorter segments for one hour of credit each -- online, or at a hospital's lunch-speaker program. Physicians need to be educated about these crucial issues!

Dr. McDougall is fired up! I believe trying to teach doctors about proper nutrition is a great idea although from what I learned in The China Study I am not surprised by the low turnout. Changing the diet habits af Americans is not a 5k but rather an ultramarathon and reaching even a small number of doctors is a step in the right direction. If Dr. McDougall is persistent he will raise the awareness of more and more doctors.

Now Dr. McDougall is acting as a whistleblower on his profession?!? This guy means business. I would love for that story to get some traction in the media.

McDougall was sounding pretty militant in the September 09 newsletter. I loved it. It helps to give me the courage to stand up to the medical industry.
Letha

This is a really tough question about how to reach doctors. I know that after I became vegan and my health totally changed for the better, I just stopped going to doctors.

I doubt that doctors see many vegans.

But my blood sugar normalized, I lost 25 pounds, my feet stopped killing me, my acid reflux disappeared, and I also am convinced that I am preventing a whole host of diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and even hypothyroidism (their is an antibody that the body makes against milk that has been shown to predict which cases of Hashimoto's progress to full blown hypothyroidism).

Doctors do not know anything about this stuff.

And if you try to tell them prepare to watch an ego explode. Even if they see the research, they are often poor judges of what is accurate and what is just more cattle and dairy industry funded 'research' either attacking veganism or promoting eating animals. They will just accept the AMA's latest book saying that plants are not a source of complete protein rather than going to the USDA nutrition website and seeing for themselves that every plant contains all the essential amino acids. It doesn't matter how simple or complciated, they just do not get it.

Add to that the money. And not just the medical profession, but the pharmaceutical industry and even the agricultural industries that support eating animals for food. They all stand to lose profits by changing. They are so heavily subsidized it would totally collapse without taxpayer funding and subsidies. The research is subsidized, the farms are subsidized. Even the price guarantees for any cattle lost in a disaster were just tripled.

I guess it's "Follow the money" as usual.

It does seem disappointing that more doctors didn't show up, but the results aren't bad from a strictly marketing standpoint. 500 doctors solicited, 19 showed up, which is a 3.8% response rate. Add in the PA and the two RN's and you're up to a 4.4% rate. That's above average for a blind solicitation. (The only tactical error was using the "fax blast"-- nobody reads these things anymore and I'm sure they were taken from the fax to the recycle bin without anyone looking at them.)

I don't know much about prices for medical continuing ed credits, but $150.00 for 4 CME credits sounds quite reasonable compared with some other professions. And since it was a McDougall presentation, I'm sure the dinner served was very good!

What makes me sad about it all is that Dr. McDougall is a great speaker and these doctors would have had a great evening with him even if they didn't agree with anything he said. They really missed out on something good and as a consequence their patients are going to potentially miss out, too.

But HURRAH! for the 22 medical professionals that did go!

Perhaps the thing that has to be done is to find a group of wealthy donors who can set up some kind of foundation to (a) pay for the expense of putting on such events and to (b) actually pay the doctors $150.00 to attend them. If I was a wealthy person I've already have done this.

--Marcus M.

One of my favorite quotes, which really shows Dr McDougall's integrity:
I have often been asked, “You are a doctor, why do you speak against the practices of fellow physicians?” I never took an oath to protect the financial interests of people in the medical industries. I did, however, take an oath to care for the sick and to keep them from harm and injustice, and to never give a deadly drug.

It seems the public is way more interested in this than most doctors are. Perhaps, as more people get informed, the doctors are going to realize that they need to get on board. But it's going to take a LOT of people changing before that happens!

This excerpt from The New York Times, Judith Warner's Domestic Disturances blog Oct 1 keeps coming to mind as I ponder how to change the eating habits of people.

"And I found myself thinking, over and over again, of Molly Melching, the founder and executive director of the nongovernmental organization Tostan, which works to teach human rights and democracy and has helped more than 4,000 communities in Africa end the traditional cutting of girls.

Melching, who has succeeded where any number of other women’s rights and global health organizations have failed, explained to me in an interview this summer that the secret to her group’s success lay in the fact that she had learned, through years of trial and error, that to reach people you had to meet them where they were. Respect them. Acknowledge their social norms, beliefs and practices. Find common ground. Build on shared human aspirations — for safety, for dignity, for a better life for one’s children — then discover how those shared aspirations might reasonably translate into ending practices that cause suffering.

“If you come in and say, ‘You are awful people,’ people tune out and say, ‘Who do you think you are?’” she told me, speaking first from Senegal, where she has lived for the past 35 years. “Making people feel bad about what they’re doing doesn’t work; they only get defensive. What does work is getting people to discuss together what are their rights and what they mean. It’s not just a question of blaming and shaming people but educating and empowering them.”

“It’s a question,” she elaborated in her D.C. office last month, “of changing the script.”

End of quote. Ms. Warner was referring to another issue convincing people to change their beliefs; but it could apply here as well.

I gather from comments that in seminar Dr. McDougall is respectful and convincing; but that in the initial recruiting people are sometimes put on the defensive and become resistant to change.

Perhaps there is a better way.

Ellen Storm
Tacoma WA

Ellen, that is an interesting idea. I think he is meeting the general public where they are, but maybe not physicians. Maybe a physician focus group would help him determine the best way to approach other physicians.

Well, if you get a cardiologist, oncologist, and dietitian to present collaboratively keeping in mind the goal of better health for their clients it might intrigue physicians to come out. Working as a team, promote how the McDougall Plan can safely not only prevent disease, but be workable in Western culture and lifestyle.