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In response to Dan Ariely's fascinating post about how patients derive more benefit from expensive drugs than they do from cheaper ones, a reader asked:
The question of expense raises doubts about how this plays out in a nationalized health care system like the one in Spain, where I live. Here, patients would be unaware of the costs of their medications and procedures, as they're all covered. Given that a significant percentage of the positive results patients experience are due to the placebo effect, one wonders whether it wouldn't be better in some cases to make patients pay something -- even a token fee -- for some treatments where this effect is more lik Read More
Placebo & Respect
You raise interesting questions in your post, Jay. Reading this, I was reminded of another pertinent issue that hasn't been studied sufficiently, as far as I know: how the placebo effect correlates to respect for the medical profession.
I seem to recall some studies suggesting that when doctors wear identifying clothes (stethoscope around the neck, colored scrubs, mysterious instruments jutting from the pocket) that patients report better results. But taking this a step further, I wonder if the more generalized cultural respect (or lack thereof) for physicians has an effect on medical outcomes. In Spain, a typical M.D. earns about 1/3 what the same specialist would earn in the U.S. and receives little of the respect customarily paid to those who work impossibly long hours under extreme pressure to save lives. If patients come to see their doctors as little more than over-educated bureaucrats, one wonders what's being lost in terms of the very real, if mysterious, placebo effect.
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