Many textbooks and even some periodicals make little distinction between what medical science supports as being predictable and what can't yet be supported as predictable. Thus, true professional societies can be very valuable to the practitioner if credibility is maintained. They can serve as a beacon for the best interpretation of medical science. It can best distinguish the basis for emergency actions required of a clinician from the stricter rigors needed for providing recommendations to patients trying to decide upon their own elective care. A professional society should demand the least biased process to seek knowledge rather than a specific results to protect the financial and ego base of some of its constituents.
Scientific guidance is hard to come by when done to justify rather than to understand.
If a method is safe and effective, it will be easier to prove than if it is risky and of, at best, marginal effectiveness. We rarely get in trouble trying to do the best we can for our patients based upon the best data available. Unfortunately, it seems rare for us to avoid past mistakes without scientific guidance. I have no intentions of dismissing significant, well-intentioned survival efforts by specialists. I only ask that we maintain some balance to avoid painting all of us with a brush that could make our worst fears become self-fulfilling prophesies.