Evidence-Based Medicine

Our take on Science and Medicine

Dr. Rider takes pride in keeping up with the latest science and research in the field of Medicine, and strives to only provide medical care that is based on the most rigorous scientific evidence and research.  This does not mean that Dr. Rider practices expensive, “cutting edge” medicine; on the contrary he usually tries to avoid using any medicine or treatment that has not been tried out by a bunch of other doctors’ patients for more than a handful of years.  More and more medical science is proving that “good” medical practice means trusting your body, making common sense choices about preventing illness, and that more prescriptions are not necessarily better for you.  At the same time, there is an overwhelming body of evidence that patients with a combination of relatively common medical problems (namely diabetes, heart disease and hypertension — which often run together) benefit from an unfortunately large pile of prescription medicine.  If this is the hand you are dealt, he will do his best to minimize your side effects, the cost of your medicine, and the hassle from taking so many pills whenever possible.

As a rule of thumb, Dr. Rider tries whenever possible to avoid prescribing medication that has not been on the market long enough to be thoroughly tested and become available in generic form, and as a consequence, he almost never has to change anyone’s medical regimen based on a new study of a new drug which reveals it has risks not previously understood.  Dr. Rider does not meet with pharmaceutical sales representatives or accept their gifts, and does not accept free samples of medicine.  While occasionally patients do benefit from getting the first few doses of a new medicine free, in the long run all scientific studies (including the pharmaceutical company’s own analysis) show that patients spend more money when “free” samples are used.