In fairness, some of the papers appear to have been written by doctors/hospital workers who had a problematic situation (patient was insisting on a bad treatment, refused the right treatments) that they reflected on and had an opinion to share. Doctors thinking about these dilemmas afterwards sounds useful, maybe the “achievement unlocked, papers published +1” gamification incentives them to reflect better on these issues. In theory another doctor might read the paper and learn something they later apply to a similar situation, although my suspicion is this is unlikely.
Although the number of papers replying to replies is worrying. If someone publishes a paper that says “X”, then someone else publishes a paper saying “not X”, then the first publishes another paper saying “no, really actually X”, then it really doesn’t look like progress. Especially if the third paper (as appears to be the case) doesn’t bring any new evidence to the table. Maybe if paper 1 was correct, but not as convincing as it should have been paper 3 has a role.
In fairness, some of the papers appear to have been written by doctors/hospital workers who had a problematic situation (patient was insisting on a bad treatment, refused the right treatments) that they reflected on and had an opinion to share. Doctors thinking about these dilemmas afterwards sounds useful, maybe the “achievement unlocked, papers published +1” gamification incentives them to reflect better on these issues. In theory another doctor might read the paper and learn something they later apply to a similar situation, although my suspicion is this is unlikely.
Although the number of papers replying to replies is worrying. If someone publishes a paper that says “X”, then someone else publishes a paper saying “not X”, then the first publishes another paper saying “no, really actually X”, then it really doesn’t look like progress. Especially if the third paper (as appears to be the case) doesn’t bring any new evidence to the table. Maybe if paper 1 was correct, but not as convincing as it should have been paper 3 has a role.