How Not To Get Fooled by the Medical Literature

A 19 part series coming Tuesdays on Sensible Medicine

Earlier this month, Adam, John and I met in San Francisco and recorded 10 installments of How Not to Get Fooled by the Medical Literature. This brings us to 19 episodes, spanning 2 seasons. We cover everything from randomized trials to decision analysis, case control studies to target trials, back pain to the Watchman device.

Starting next Tuesday, we will begin by re-posting Season 1 ICYMI. We will post these weekly, and make these episodes available to everyone. No more paywall! If you enjoy the episodes, send the videos to your students, residents, fellows, friends and colleagues.

Then, 10 weeks from now, we will start posting Season 2 episodes. We will post these bi-weekly for our subscribers.

How Not to Get Fooled is motivated by our view that, in 2026, it is easy to be mislead by medical science, and many forces are out there trying to mislead you. The sponsors of specific clinical trials, retrospective observational studies, and cost-effectiveness analyses stand to make billions of dollars if they can persuade regulators and doctors to adopt their products. Clinical societies and expert physicians— so called “Key Opinion Leaders”— often lack expertise in critically evaluating these research efforts. At times, there may be financial incentives to look the other way.

Even “non-conflicted” researchers may have conflicts. In biomedicine, there is a huge incentive to claim discovery- That you have found something new and actionable that no one else has. Yet, time and again, these efforts do not always replicate. Are there ways to tell which science will be enduring?

That’s why randomization matters. Not always, but sometimes (we explain when). Control arms matter. Pre-specifying your primary endpoint matters. Sticking to your statistical analysis plan matters. Endpoints matter. Power matters. Hierarchical design matters. Drug run in periods— or double run ins— can matter. Representation matters. Pragmatism matters. Concealment matters. Blinding matters (well, again, sometimes).

We believe this 19 part lecture series captures the best of each of us, but brings something more. Each lecture is typically half didactic and half discussion. Even though we are 3 like-minded medical conservatives, you will see considerable disagreement between us. Even when we agree, we phrase things differently. There is a synergy when we are all in the room together. That’s why we travelled to make this possible.

We are delighted to share this lecture series with you, dear reader. You will find that I have already unlocked the first episode, but starting next week, we will post them directly to you— and they should also appear on the Sensible Medicine podcast feed. Subscribe on Itunes, if you haven’t already.

Finally, let us not forget that despite the fact our lecture series is about arming yourself with the mental tools to avoid being fooled— many times in medicine, we have witnessed real advances. There has been considerable progress made in all specialties in the 20 years I have been in medicine, the 40 years John has been, and the 275 years since Adam blood-let George Washington. Progress is wonderful, but all that glitters is not gold.

Our lecture series aims to help you tease apart the real nuggets from pyrite.

PS: Why am I introducing the series? Only because I drew the short straw and have to edit the videos! If there are errors, these are mine alone.