Dr. Marcus Law Believes that Physician Obedience is More Important Than Patient Outcomes
By STEVE KIRSCH
He’s Assoc. Dean of the MD program at University of Toronto. Is this the role model for doctors at U of T?!? Will any of the doctors at U of T speak out about this? Or will they all remain silent?
Executive summary
In Canada, if you don’t follow the recommendations of the public health authorities like the Ontario Ministry of Health, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) will try to take away your license to practice medicine.
Assisting them in that process is none other than Dr. Marcus Law, Associate Dean of the MD program at the University of Toronto in Canada. Dr. Law is the top officer for the MD program which is one of the largest MD programs in Canada.
Dr. Law agrees with the CPSO that requiring doctors to follow guidelines is more important than patient outcomes. Law investigates non-compliant physicians and writes them up if they don’t comply. Patient outcomes are irrelevant.
What this means is that doctors who disobey directives, even if they achieve perfect patient outcomes, can have their license to practice medicine revoked.
Does the University of Toronto faculty agree with this priority? I sure don’t. Medicine should be all about patient outcomes, not following orders.
Introduction
Recently I sent the following email to Dr. Law with three easy questions:
I’m a journalist with 1M followers worldwide. I have three questions for you I’m hoping to get your answer on:
- Is physician compliance with local health directives more important than patient outcomes? So if a doctor A follows Ontario health protocols and 10% of his patients die and doctor B doesn’t follow protocols and has 0% deaths, do you believe the best action is to recommend that doctor B’s license to practice medicine be revoked?
- Can you explain why the COVID hospitalization rate in Ontario increased 31% in 2022 while the COVID death rate increased by 39%? Weren’t the vaccines supposed to do the opposite?
- The health authorities worldwide refuse to make the death and vaccination records public in order to do a proper epidemiological study that would show whether the vaccines are safe or not. Do you believe in data transparency or do you believe that withholding the data and keeping it secret (and unanalyzed) leads to better health outcomes? If it is the latter, do you have a reference for that in the medical literature? I’m anxious to see it! And if you do believe in data transparency, can you describe what efforts you have personally made to champion this?
Thanks!
-steve
Dr. Law chose to ignore all my questions.
Is that what leaders of the medical community do? Duck questions? Is this the model of behavior for doctors to follow to duck questions that you don’t want to answer?
In Dr. Law’s view, if you don’t do what “they say” you should have your license revoked even if your patient outcomes are superior compared to physicians that toe the line.
Basically, doctors need to do as they are told, not treat the patient to the best of your ability.
Is this the kind of medicine that they teach at University of Toronto?
Dr. Law’s response to my article
After I wrote this article, I sent it to Dr. Law for comment.
That was four days ago. I also emailed his assistant.
It seems they are fine with my article, so there you go.
Dr. Law should stripped of his position as Associate Dean
In my opinion, medicine should be about patient outcomes. That should be the only thing that matters.
Anyone who prioritizes following orders over patient outcomes should not be allowed to practice medicine. They are not serving their patients.
Appointing such individuals as an associate dean is beyond ludicrous.
If the University of Toronto doesn’t take appropriate action to relieve him of his position as Associate Dean, I believe it will reflect very badly upon the university and that medical students should consider enrolling elsewhere where patient outcomes are prioritized over “following orders.”
Summary
If you think society benefits by grooming robot physicians who do what they are told, Marcus Law is your man. You need not take any action.
On the other hand, if you disagree, …
