In fact, one alarming study found that some doctors prescribe better pain medication for their white patients than black patients.
While the supposedly confident interns may be incompetent to prescribe appropriately, the insecure ones may prescribe better.
It is worth noting that the prescription database in GPRD can actually track data on medication prescribing better than many randomised controlled trials.
Can we be trusted to pace ourselves, or is some sort of prescribed allocation better for us?
Although most patients obtained the medicines they were prescribed, those better off were still more likely to obtain them than the others.
Patients who met the inclusion criteria were approached by the research assistant and asked if they wanted to participate in a study designed to help them understand and manage their complex medical conditions and prescribed medications better.
That's why, however much I up his painkillers, and prescribe new, better, fancier ones, Mr Hutchens's pain will, stubbornly, never get better.
It's like someone showing up at death's door in the emergency room with a heart attack and the only thing the doctor does is to prescribe a better diet and exercise to prevent a heart attack in the future.
"I'm not a doctor, but there is something inside that tells me the fewer of these things we prescribe, the better off we'll be," Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the vice chief of staff of the Army who has led efforts on suicide, said in an interview.
