the idea that the scientific method--even assuming it is practiced honestly-- is the most objective basis for the practice of physicians
Yes it is. Just looking at the improvements in surgery outcomes in places where surgeons have been persuaded to use best practice rather than rely entirely on their personal judgment alone.
And it's not just physicians and hospitals. It turns out that my husband may have been the beneficiary of a new approach to resuscitating heart attack and stroke victims from unconscious. The team tending to my husband on our living room floor were using everything you see on film and television - CPR, defibrillation paddles, adrenaline shots, IV fluids, the whole resuscitation party. That IV fluid might have been
chilled. The woman running the research visited my husband's room once he was out of ICU and explained to us that they're investigating whether starting the cooling process (to promote healing / control damage of the brain as well as muscles like the heart) from first contact rather than only when the person is fully set up in an ICU with the refrigerating machine and its large pads.
The chilled IV units are randomly available within the ambulances so nobody ever knows whether a patient gets the chilled IV except by the feel of it when it's unpacked from the kit.
Why are they doing it? Because there are anecdotal observations that people suffering such events who are in cold conditions or suffering from hypothermia at the time
seem to have better survival rates. So they're doing a random allocation of chilled IV in the ambulances and following up on patient outcomes at various points thereafter. Science in medicine at work. And if the research shows that this procedure doesn't benefit patients? They'll spend their money on other procedures that
do show positive benefit for patients.
the most objective basis for the practice of physicians
That's why many patients in ICU are attached to pads that lower their temperature (to below 33C) and put into induced comas. Because it's been shown, scientifically, that many more patients suffering from severe conditions recover when this is done.