CNN’s Paging Dr. Gupta: My doctor, my coach.

This job would be a lot easier–and I’d be looking pretty darned good–if I just rewrote Gary Schwitzer‘s posts on his Health News Review Blog.

Schwitzer, a long-time medical writer, broadcaster and j-school prof, took a swipe the other day at CNN, where he was once head of medical news. I might disagree with Schwitzer on some of the particulars, but his general thrust was right on target.

The program in question was Sanjay Gupta, M.D., Gupta’s weekly medical show, also known as Paging Dr. Gupta. As Schwitzer points out, Gupta introduces the program by saying, in part, “I’m your doctor. I’m also your coach.” Heh-heh. It might come as a surprise to Dr. G (as I’m sure he’d want me to call him) that I don’t go to my doctor for news–and I don’t go to CNN for treatment, or coaching. Gupta is persuasive, however. Another part of his introduction, which Schwitzer didn’t highlight, was “Welcome to the place to live longer, and stronger.” Who could resist that? And who knew watching TV could make it happen?

One hopes that at least some viewers are sophisticated enough–and they don’t have to be terribly savvy–to recognize this as the usual television silliness. On the other hand, I could almost feel myself being drawn in, and I am, of course, extremely sophisticated, a point I’d be happy to elaborate on any time of day or night. Gupta is smooth, he comes across as very smart, and he knows stuff. At least what his producers tell him, if nothing else. I’m not quite as outraged as Schwitzer by this nonsense, but I do agree that it has no place in a news show.

Schwitzer doesn’t like the idea of Gupta offering any medical advice whatsoever, and, again, I mostly agree. A news program, he writes, “is supposed to be news. Not medical advice.” I’m not entirely opposed to the idea of offering medical advice, if it’s done responsibly. We often ask science writers to think before they write, to analyze, interpret, and evaluate before simply transcribing quotes. And we can allow medical writers, and doctors, to give readers help with their medical care, although we shouldn’t be telling them we can make the live longer and stronger. Even doctors shouldn’t say that on TV, because it’s not true. Exercise likely makes you live longer; Dr. G’s exhortations don’t.

Schwitzer also slams Gupta for his coverage of a story out of the recent meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, in which researchers reported that adding Avastin to standard chemotherapy significantly extended the “progression-free survival” of women with advanced ovarian cancer.

The operative word is “significantly,” which has a mathematical meaning that differs from its meaning in common usage. To wit: The women who got Avastin saw no worsening in their cancer for 14.1 months, compared to 10.3 months for women on standard chemotherapy.

Cynical medical writers have been here before. We know that spending tens of thousands of dollars to extend survival for less than 4 months is a bad deal for the health care system, even if it means a lot to those women. We can’t afford that sort of thing for every woman with ovarian cancer.

But here’s a point the cynical sophisticates rarely make: These drugs are generally tested in the sickest of the sick, so that there is less to lose if the drugs prove to be dangerous. But these drugs that extend lives for a paltry few months in advanced disease might extend lives for years if given early; so these results mean more than we might think. This is proof-of-concept stuff, not a regimen to be dispensed tomorrow.

Schwitzer criticizes Gupta for saying Avastin could slow the the spread of ovarian cancer “pretty dramatically.” That’s clearly over-reaching, at this stage of the research. And Gupta makes no claim to be an oncologist, so he doesn’t necessarily know any more about this than any reporter or any patient who’s done the research.

Thanks to Gary Schwitzer for alerting me to all of this. Thanks to Dr. G for making me feel so, I dunno, safe and cared for. And phooey to CNN for letting this guy get away with this stuff.

This is the same guy, remember, who started treating patients when he was in Haiti reporting on the earthquake. I don’t know whether he’s been back in recent weeks to follow up on his patients. But that’s surely something we would expect our doctor, and our coach, to do.

– Paul Raeburn