> And so you decide to go back to your doctor, and ask about this new treatment, which never existed before. And you never would have done that, probably ever, if you hadn't seen the advertisement.
This should be your doctor's job when you go for annual checkups. If you don't go for annual checkups, you shouldn't be surprised that your health choices are falling out of date.
>This should be your doctor's job when you go for annual checkups.
How would you know to ask the doctor about it during your annual check-up, if you aren't aware of the existence of the drug? As others have mentioned already, doctors do not tend to track every single new medication for every possible little condition that their patients could have. And even if they physically could do that (not sure if it is actually possible), do you think they would, just like every web developer would keep track of every new little framework/tool that gets released and could potentially serve their needs better?
> How would you know to ask the doctor about it during your annual check-up, if you aren't aware of the existence of the drug?
I don't rely on business users asking me about technical solutions to their problems based on advertisements they've seen, and I'm not in a field with as much required specialized prerequisite and continuing education and mandated licensing as medicine.
Now, certainly there are patients that meaningfully contribute by, e.g., actually doing deep dives in the scientific literature related to their diagnosis and related treatments, and bringing questions and references derived from that research to their doctor, which really does cover things at a level that the average practitioner might not be aware of for a particular conditjo . But the kind of ads in popular media are of marginal if any value to them.
> As others have mentioned already, doctors do not tend to track every single new medication for every possible little condition that their patients could have.
They are bombarded with even more aggressive marketing than the public is for any of the ones that are spending money on public ads, so even if there is a real issue here, public-facing drug ads are not directed at solving it.
Your doctor knows all the medications you take as well as what conditions you suffer from, when you describe that you still suffer from side effects they will update you on the latest medications.
As far as "they do not track" , they are supposed to. That's a failing on the doctor's part but putting the patients in charge based on paid TV advertisements for what is actually an extremely narrow portion of available drugs is not the solution.
This should be your doctor's job when you go for annual checkups. If you don't go for annual checkups, you shouldn't be surprised that your health choices are falling out of date.