The Power of Placebo
Prisca Fall
Dr. Thomas Greene, Faculty Mentor
McNair Scholars Program
A patient enters a physician’s office, complaining that he has a chronic ailment, some sort of pain, in his stomach. He does not know what the pain is, but the physician says, ‘Place a warm patch on it, and it should be fine.’ Later, the patient claims that the treatment does not work. Furthermore, he claims that he has tried everything in the book, from warm patches to over-the-counter medicine. The physician immediately suggests that his patient take Drug ‘X’, which he says, relieves people from all sorts of ailments. That night, the patient takes his physician’s advice. A few days later, he revisits his physician and says, ‘Thank you, Doc! I feel better than ever thanks to that medication!’
This is an exaggerated version of what may actually occur. Note that there is something peculiar about this scenario: What was Drug ‘X’? Why did the physician fail to notify his patient about the drug in the first place? Although there is no panacea in medicine, there is a such thing as a placebo.
The word placebo is Latin, meaning I shall please (Harrington, 1997, p. 1). From the beginning, the connotation attached to the word has catered to pleasing as oppose to healing. Thus, many consider placebos to be sham treatments, particularly because their purpose is to tend to anxious or insatiable patients (Harrington, 1997, p. 1).
Regardless, a placebo is an inactive pill prescribed by a physician, but given to relieve the complaint of the patient (Spiro, 1997, p. 44). Placebos may include a variety of other procedures, either diagnostic or therapeutic, where the physician knows the treatment brings no true, pharmacological benefit to the patient. Placebos alleviate symptoms of pain, and facilitate the perception of the healing process, but they do not heal diseases (Spiro, 1998, p. 76). In other words, a placebo depends solely on the power of suggestion and trust in authority for its effect. In my view, patients do not deserve treatment that will temporarily heal their symptoms of pain; they need genuine treatment that will totally thwart the disease.