The urge to prove and its ills

The urge to prove rather than the healthy self-critique is much in vogue. This trend ranges from our haste in making our research findings public before they go through the traditional peer review to almost every domain of our activity as physicians and scientists. We seem to be in general content with what we know about disease mechanisms, our ability to diagnose, treat, and prevent. I propose that this lack of self-critique is also an important component of the less than desired status of the physician-drug industry relationship. What is more worrying is that the physicians seem to take as the norm that if there is drug industry sponsoring in a study the results are always tainted. I propose that "our urge to prove" is very much behind this unfortunate state of affairs. I like to think the more we stay away from the urge to prove and bring in cerebral activity in the direction of self-critique much less likely will the drug industry be able to meddle in our affairs.