Student Research Makes Headlines
Fourth-Year Student Makes Headlines Worldwide
Rachel Sherman
Major news media followed the research of fourth-year student Rachel Sherman earlier this year in one of the most broadly covered Pritzker student projects in recent years. Rachel was first author on the article “Academic Physicians Use Placebos in Clinical Practice and Believe in the Mind-Body Connection,” which appeared in the January 2008 issue of Journal of General Internal Medicine and concludes that doctors believe placebos can have a therapeutic effect.
Rachel’s research, which emanated from a Pritzker Summer Research Project in which she investigated “Placebos in Health Care Practice,” was conducted with Dr. John Hickner, Professor of Family Medicine, and investigated the frequency of doctors prescribing placebos, or “sugar pills,” to patients. Their results showed a high frequency—of the 231 physicians who responded to the survey (half of those solicited), 45% had given a placebo to a patient in clinical practice.
“Placebos have been used in medicine since ancient times and remain both clinically relevant and philosophically interesting. In addition to their recognized use as controls in clinical trials, this study suggests that placebos themselves are viewed as therapeutic tools in medical practice,” said Rachel in a quote from U.S. News & World Report.
Since the article was published, the research has been cited in news outlets as far away as India and the United Kingdom.
