This is the sort of service that a general practitioner should be providing.
The vast majority of patients have routine problems. Though these might be distressing to the individuals, the "standard of care" (assuming correct diagnosis) is established practice, and this service would not affect that.
For the few with very rare conditions, or with useless primary care physicians, this service might be useful, however the price is very high for what is essentially a diagnostic/referral service.
Nevertheless, I think it could be commercially successful, given the number of people who think they know more about medicine and medical practice than their doctors do.
There are many conditions which are extremely common, but for which more effective treatments don't propagate to patients. About 5% of the US population has clinical depression, for example, and writing gratitude letters has been shown in studies to be quite effective at treating depression (more so than drugs or therapy). Yet, most patients don't know about it.
Yes, I did see that, but it doesn't address the important part of the assertion (more so than drugs or therapy) so to be charitable, I assume the OP has a different reference in mind.
Good point, although it's hard to say without reading the full-text. Personally, I wasn't interested enough to pay for access to read it. shrug Still, it is suggestive that the OP isn't totally blowing smoke on this.
Interesting; I don't have the same take. If the OP's assertion is true, then he's referencing an under-recognized study of critical importance. If it's just hyperbole sitting on top of truth (whether due to an incorrect recollection or otherwise), that's a big problem.
Claims that have some truth to them, but which are not correct, are both endemic to and hazardous in healthcare. I will argue that in this type of conversation, claims of fact that are disputed but ultimately unsupported must be taken to be false until shown otherwise.
(The fulltext of the article that you found doesn't use the terms "SSRI", "medication", "drug", or "therapy", but I haven't read it in depth to see if they're using some unusual synonyms.)
I sincerely hope his scientific evidence of the efficacy of letters of gratitude does not come from this reference within the "Journal of Happiness Studies" with a whopping sample size of 219.
The rate of propagation of new treatments is an issue, certainly. However, it is something that a good primary care physician is able to (or rather, should) look-up in an instant if the first line treatment isn't effective. There are no secret treatments being withheld from anyone. Any really cutting-edge research is also of uncertain benefit, simply because it hasn't been tested often enough.
The vast majority of patients have routine problems. Though these might be distressing to the individuals, the "standard of care" (assuming correct diagnosis) is established practice, and this service would not affect that.
For the few with very rare conditions, or with useless primary care physicians, this service might be useful, however the price is very high for what is essentially a diagnostic/referral service.
Nevertheless, I think it could be commercially successful, given the number of people who think they know more about medicine and medical practice than their doctors do.