Disagreement in Medical Community

It is sickening to see the public display of childish behaviour among our religious leaders/celebrities. It trickles down to their followers. A child would ask, why can't they just have one opinion? But as we grow old, we know that as long as we are human, differences in opinion will happen. The only thing we can do is how to learn to disagree like a grown-up adult, to tolerate different opinions. Like the famous quote, 'agree to disagree'.

When I was a kid, I remember very well the 6-steps of performing wudu' and 13 steps of praying. Then when I was opened to the world around me, I know that those steps are an extension of the understanding of previous scholars. And scholars differ, most of them in a very respectful manner.

I enjoy being in a medical community whereby we are free to express our opinions, despite being different to others. Of course, we can have consensus and guidelines, but they are not set in stone either. For example, the old (Malaysia) hypertension guideline promote the use of a combined ACEi and ARB, while we know based on latest evidence, that is wrong in majority of situations.

Dealing with pregnant women with kidney disease forces me to read on guidelines on pre eclampsia, hypertension in pregnancy and how to deal with glomerulonephritis etc. One interesting section is the thromboprophylactic use in post-partum period in women who are deemed to have moderate-high risk to get DVT or PE. This is the use of heparin/LMWH in post partum period. Recently, there was a shift (at least for me, as I just heard it) regarding giving 10-day prophylaxis LMWH injection in women who have 2 or more risk factors. This may include age >35 and parity>3 - which many women would have (among others).

Major guidelines (including Malaysian) were written advocating this practice. However, it is interesting the exchanges between them when there is a small group of authors who refused to agree with the guidelines. In a scholastic manner, they started by saying, that this is not personal and they have utmost respect for the opposing party. And they give their reasons, within the realm of their expertise, without going out of a tangen to smear the personal views and resort to name-calling.

Same thing when we speak to others who did not agree with our religious principle, that we say 'I understand your concern, but from Muslim perspective, this is not allowed. etc". That partly remove the direct personal insult- that it is not me saying it to irritate you, but that's what God has commanded me to do.

Of course, this also means that we agreeing to certain extent to the liberal philosophy, that gives right to individual liberty and freedom, instead of the authoritarian principle which 'you must agree with what I say'.

See:
https://www.dropbox.com/…/2017%20Letter%20pharmacologic%20t…