But doctors who prescribe placebos outside medical research are con artists. If such deception became an accepted therapeutic practice in the field of medicine, it would resurrect professional hubris in a profession threatened on several fronts. A breach of trust can ruin any human relationship, but in medical practice a serious violation of trust, whether the violator is the physician or the patient, can be more difficult to remedy than the illness itself. Such a breach can result, for example, from concealing a serious diagnosis or prescribing a placebo. Patients complain of physician apathy and accuse HMOs of skimping on their care.
Physicians complain about having to see more patients yet receiving less reimbursement.
The bonds between physicians and patients are clearly strained. Prescribing placebos leads to severance, not rapprochement. Doctors immersed in this maelstrom can serve as loyal patient advocates only when the physician-patient relationship is intact. Anything that separates patients and their doctors jeopardizes the profession's capacity for healing. Prescribing placebos would have just this effect.