Influence and Medicine

The flash drive contains all blog articles through early January 2026.  I didn’t edit the blog articles, and unfortunately, the program adds in extra returns.  Blogger has also done a good job of corrupting some of the tables and recipes, which makes me feel bad.  It seems to have especially affected the first couple of years.  So to compensate we’ve included the full manuscripts for Bring Your Own Bandages and Food Storage Made Fabulous.  Everything is in PDF and Word files, with the exception of FSMF, which is only in PDF.  That Word file went AWOL. 

The flash drive is the same as last year’s-- this one--water resistant, crush resistant, and temperature proof (though I bet I could find a way...).  The flash drives themselves are $30.  Shipping within the US only is $6, regardless of the number purchased. For more info, see the post on January 27.

A few months ago, a friend highly recommended the book Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini for its information pertaining to selling books.  I couldn’t imagine taking the time to sit down and read a book at that time, being swamped with the garden and a lot of travel (which did not bode well for the garden, BTW).  So it became the first ever book I purchased and listened to on Audible. 

I think I’m on my fourth time through it now.  I’ve recommended it to my husband (who has also enjoyed it) and all the kids.  It’s that good.  But not for selling books.  I mean, it’s fine for that, but what blows me away are the other things I’ve become aware of, things I think are worth sharing with those of a preparedness mindset.  I’m still pondering on many points.  And perhaps they’re all small points but when taken as a whole paint a bigger picture. 

Today’s small points concern psychology and medicine. 

Do you remember the Vicks cough syrup commercials from the 1980s?  “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV”?  The first one featured Chris Robinson, the actor who portrayed Dr. Rick Weber on the General Hospital soap opera.  When he was charged with tax evasion and sentenced to prison, he was replaced with a different actor portraying a doctor on another soap opera.  People were willing to listen to someone who only portrayed a doctor on TV for guidance on how to deal with a cough.  (Intriguingly, Chris Robinson was allowed to serve his term under a prison work-release program so that he could continue playing his TV role.  Was it because of his “doctor” status?) [1]   In my off-grid medicine classes, it was suggested that those wearing a white coat were viewed as more credible.  Donning a surgical mask conveyed the same idea.  For some people, if it looks like a doctor, and talks like a doctor, it must be a doctor. 

We have in this country and the medical world something of a tradition of automatic obedience to doctor orders.  But is that in our best interests?

“When a physician makes a clear error, no one lower in the hierarchy will think to question it, precisely because once a legitimate authority has given an order, subordinates stop thinking in this situation and start reacting.”[2] 

“According to the Institute of Medicine, which advises the US Congress on health policy, hospitalized patients can expect to experience at least one medication error per day.  Other statistics are equally frightening.  Annual deaths in the United States from medical errors exceed those of all accidents.  And worldwide, 40% of primary and outpatient care patients are harmed by medical errors each year.  Errors in the medicine patients receive can occur for a variety of reasons.  However, in their book, Medication Errors:  Causes and Prevention, Temple University professors of pharmacy, Michael Cohen and Neil Davis, attribute much of the problem to the mindless deference given to the boss of a patient’s case, the attending physician.  According to Cohen, in case after case, patients, nurses, pharmacists and other physicians do not question the prescription.  Take, for example, the classic case of the rectal ear ache, reported by Cohen and Davis in an interview. 

A physician ordered ear drops to be administered to the right ear of a patient suffering pain and infection there.  Instead of writing out completely the location ‘right ear’ on the prescription, the doctor abbreviated it, so that the instructions read ‘place in r ear.’  Upon receiving the prescription, the duty nurse promptly put the required number of eardrops into the patient’s anus.  Obviously, rectal treatment of an earache made no sense, but neither the nurse nor the patient questioned it.  The important lesson of this story is that in many situations in which a legitimate authority has spoken what would otherwise make sense is irrelevant.” [3] 

We’ve all seen people who seem to check their brains at the door when dealing with an authority figure.  They’re “just following orders,” like that becomes some kind of excuse for incompetence or criminal conduct.  In Chapter 5 of this book, the author reviews studies concerning nurses following a doctor’s orders instead of thinking for themselves.  One of those studies investigated whether nurses would follow the phoned-in orders (direct violation of policy) from a doctor they didn’t know (seriously?!) to administer a gross overdose of medication (the max daily dose was 10 mg, half of the 20 mg that the doctor ordered) that is not authorized or even stocked in that ward, to patients for whom such medication would not be indicated.  Basically, they found that most highly trained nurses will not use that training to question a doctor’s judgment.  “That 95% of regular staff nurses complied unhesitatingly with a patently improper instruction of this sort must give us all as potential hospital patients great reason for concern.” [4]    No kidding.

Now, think about what could happen if AI gets involved.  Bad actors could use an AI-generated voice over the phone to duplicate a personally known doctor’s voice, and instruct a nurse to administer a lethal dose of medication to anyone on the floor.  And consider that so many physician references are now electronic.  Of course, the touted advantage is that they can be updated immediately with the latest advancements.  Or a bad actor could change dosages, or program them to change back and forth, or alter the text in any number of ways.  With most hospital records including race and religion, it seems like certain groups of people could be targeted for special treatment.  Maybe that’s something to put on my bingo card for next year. 

Personally, I’d rather they consulted paper copies of references and maintained paper, not electronic, records.

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[1] Robert Cialdini, Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion, 2021 edition, ch. 5, 39 minute mark.

[2] Robert Cialdini, Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion, 2021 edition, ch. 5, 33 minute mark.

[3] Robert Cialdini, Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion, 2021 edition, ch. 5, 35 minute mark.

[4] Robert Cialdini, Influence:  The Psychology of Persuasion, 2021 edition, ch. 5, 51 minute mark.