My position is informed by my own experience; I am not a physician, but have worked closely with a large number of them in a healthcare-oriented career. I've repeatedly noted long-term resistance of many physicians to updating their priors based on robust new evidence.
There are definitely many physicians who do take in the latest developments judiciously. But I find the long tail of default resistance to be very, very long.
It's not bad actually, considering how many times the new shiny thing has turned out to be quite dangerous a few years later.
In a field as high stake as healthcare you want the whole spectrum, from early adopters to die hard skeptics.
Especially since we know the reproducibility problem of research, the influence of big pharma and big insurance on healthcare, etc etc
I was just explaining to a UK colleague about how the American health care system makes getting treatment (and getting it paid for) into a DIY project. And so as a medical shopper, if I’m getting a very standard established treatment I might go for the older experienced doctor, but if it’s a new thing I’d opt for someone more recently graduated.
There are definitely many physicians who do take in the latest developments judiciously. But I find the long tail of default resistance to be very, very long.