I read this blog post (“Why doctors and hospitals shouldn’t advertise“) on KevinMD.com a few days ago and decided to write a response.

The writer of the piece, “Skeptical Scalpel” is a surgeon who has been in practice since the 1970s and is opposed to advertising by doctors or hospitals.

To argue against advertising by doctors, Dr. “Scalpel” makes two points:  First, his (unsuccessful) experience with advertising in the Yellow Pages in the 1970s and 80s.  And second, an advertisement he found in an airline magazine for another surgeon which claims a very high cure rate for prostate cancer surgery with a very low rate of complications and side effects.

His conclusion: “The public is flooded with advertisements promising miracles that often cannot be delivered. Disappointment surely follows.”

I agree with Dr. Scalpel on a number of points.  I believe strongly that doctors and other health care providers have an additional burden to advertise ethically and truthfully above and beyond an average business.  If you buy a crappy new TV based on an inaccurate advertisement, you’ll be out of some money and might be annoyed at the poor quality picture.  But if you choose a crappy doctor based on overhyped advertising, you are potentially risking your life and health!

I don’t know a lot of details about prostate surgery, but I agree the advertisement quoted by Dr. Scalpel sounds a little fishy.  If I were going to see that doctor, I’d ask some very pointed questions about what exactly is meant by “cure rate” and how that doctor got those numbers.

However, I think the conclusion that all advertising by doctors is bad is the wrong one.

My foremost goal in my career is to be a healer and do the right thing for all my  patients.  But after that, I am also a business owner and I want to run a successful and profitable business.  Advertising is a potential way to help my practice succeed.

But advertising is by no means guaranteed to work.  Huge corporations with multimillion dollar budgets have had epic failures in advertising (anyone remember New Coke from the 80s?).  So, the fact that Dr. Scalpel’s advertisement in the Yellow Pages didn’t work out is hardly a condemnation of all advertising.

Health care advertising that claims overhyped or dubious benefits is indeed a problem, but I don’t believe that just because some ads are inaccurate, all ads should be banned.

I personally think that advertising CAN be helpful in both generating business for my practice and educating potential patients about treatments that could help them.  I think it is important that doctors get involved with the ad writing though.

If I hire a marketing firm to create ads for my practice, they could easily overhype what I have to offer.  It’s up to me to ensure that the advertisement provides a realistic picture.  A marketing firm only cares about generating business and revenue. As a doctor, I also care about who does NOT need treatment and making sure that those people are educated and counseled appropriately (even if I don’t make as much money from treating them).

Like it or not, health care is a business in America, and I have to run a successful business to be able to help patients.  If I can use honest and ethical advertising to help bring in more patients that can benefit from my care, I most certainly will.

America is also a free country, and doctors, hospitals, and drug companies will continue to advertise within the limits of free speech and legal requirements.  As a doctor, part of my job is to tell patients that just because they see some new procedure or drug in an advertisement doesn’t mean it’s right for them.