“A MAN WHO CANNOT WORK WITHOUT HIS HYPODERMIC NEEDLE IS A POOR DOCTOR.”

This statement suggests that practitioners who can’t treat people without prescribing drugs aren’t actually good doctors.  It claims that the more drugs a doctor prescribes, the less their skills and expertise are.

On the contrary, sometimes prescribing drugs to a patient is the best course of action that a doctor can take, such as when a GP sees a patient with an infection. The only effective and efficient way of currently dealing with the infection would be by prescribing the patient some antibiotics. In this case, they are still being a good doctor as they are seeing to the full recovery of their patient and no doing so could lead to serious complications. The idea that the more drugs you give to your patients, the lower your level of expertise is not necessarily accurate as a anaesthetists are doctors who specialise in giving patients the right type of anaesthetic when in an operation. The role of an anaesthetist is to give drugs, this doesn’t make them incompetent doctors.

Alternatively, it can be argued that this statement is accurate as certain drugs (such as antidepressants and painkillers) do not actually resolve the problem, they just mask the symptoms. A doctor has the role of healing patients to the best of their ability so by prescribing drugs they are not fulfilling their role – try patient’s illness has not been cured, but just concealed. Drugs are also essentially toxic chemicals which all have different side effects. A good doctor would try to avoid prescribing such chemicals due to the potential harm they could produce as an act of non- maleficence. It could therefore be argued that the more you prescribe, the less skilled you actually are in this field.

 In conclusion, this statement is not without merit as there are times when doctors unnecessarily prescribe drugs. Overall, I conclude that there are times when prescribing drugs is the best action to take, but not on every occasion. So a good doctors is defined by the one who can effectively prescribe at appropriate times and also the one who doesn’t give medicine to patients when it will not be of benefit to them.