E92 Wayne Rosen on EBM and Intercessory Prayer, Objectivity in Science, and COVID19 Ethical Dilemmas

Cold Steel: Canadian Journal of Surgery Podcast

Is intercessory prayer more or less effective than lasix? These seemingly random questions are the “rabbit holes” that keep Dr. Wayne Rosen up at night. Dr. Rosen is a colorectal surgeon at the Peter Lougheed Centre in Calgary, Alberta. Dr. Rosen has long delighted the calgary surgical community with his entertaining and thoughtful critiques of a whole host of philosophical and bioethical concepts, ranging from evidence based medicine to how we might ration surgical resources in a pandemic like COVID. We recorded this conversation back in May 2021. We would love to hear your thoughts on any of the topics we discussed on this week’s episode on twitter @canjsurg or by email at [e-mail].

Links:

1. Dr. Rosen's website: http://www.limitsofebm.org/

2. Cochrane review on intercessory prayer: https://www.cochrane.org/CD000368/SCHIZ_intercessory-prayer-for-the-alleviation-of-ill-health#:~:text=Intercessory%20prayer%20is%20one%20of,in%20some%20kind%20of%20need.

3. Doing Right by Hebert and Rosen: https://www.amazon.ca/Doing-Right-Practical-Trainees-Physicians/dp/0199031339

Bio (from colondoc.ca):

Dr. Wayne Rosen did his undergraduate degree in the arts at Queens' University in Kingston, Ontario. After this he studied in Europe for two years and returned to Canada to study medicine. Dr. Rosen graduated in 1991 from Queens University Medical School in Kingston, Ontario, and completed his General Surgery training at the University of Calgary in 1997. He subsequently worked in overseas for three months and practiced briefly in Calgary, and then at the North York General Hospital in Toronto for almost two years. Starting in 2000, Dr. Rosen completed a fellowship in Colorectal Surgery at the University of Texas in Houston, under the mentorship of Dr. H. Randolph Bailey. Following this, he joined the faculty of the Department of Surgery at the University of Calgary at the Peter Lougheed Hospital in 2001. For 10 years he shared a clinical practice with Dr. Doug Johnson until moving out on his own in the summer of 2011. His clinical practice is now situated at the Peter Lougheed Centre and is primarily in the area of colon and rectal surgery.

Dr. Rosen is a Fellow of the Royal College of physicians and Surgeons of Canada (FRCS). He is also board certified in both general and colorectal surgery in the United States. He is also a Fellow of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgery.

In addition to his clinical practice, Dr. Rosen is active as a teacher and instructor with both residents and medical students at the University of Calgary. He is the Chair of the Medical Skills Course at the University of Calgary Medical School and he co-chairs the undergraduate medical students bioethics course with Dr. Ian Mitchell. He regularly lectures and gives seminars on topics related to colon and rectal surgery, as well as bioethics. He has an active interest in biomedical ethics, with a particular interest in areas related to informed consent, resource allocation, medicine and law, and ethical issues in research. Most recently he is interested in the challenges and limits of Evidence-Based Medicine. He has a Masters in Medical Science (MSc Bioethics). Dr. Rosen is a clinical assistant professor in the department of surgery at the University of Calgary.