Sunday, October 30, 2011

Brenda Carey changed her website!

A reader made me aware of irresponsible marketing by Dr Brenda Carey. She has now changed her marketing strategy from a misleading "Stop Stuttering with ..." to a reasonable and factual "Stuttering Specialist Dr Brenda Carey": check out the website. She and her team are definitely stuttering specialists. I might not agree with everything they do, but, if you lived next door to their practise, I would not hesitate to suggest that you take your child to them.

Interestingly, she changed the text from "..what options are available to stop stuttering" to "what evidence based treatments are available to reduce your stuttering and improve your communication." I would have added "reduce your fears" or "improve your well-being".



Unfortunately, she also shows her "evidence-based treatment" obsession. No surprise here, given that she has been indoctrinated during her PhD in the Onslow and Packman environment. Again, evidence-based practise is in-principle a good idea, but very difficult to implement in clinical practise, especially for stuttering and in the hands of clinicians who lack a rigorous training in science and statistics. Moreover, evidence-based practise requires solid evidence from well-done trials and the disclosure of all evidence. And here she is misrepresenting evidence, something she has not addressed yet. But that's for a another post!

To all people who stutter and those who strive for high ethical standards in marketing therapies, public pressure works as this case shows. Get out there, and loudly express your opinion! Don't let others tell you what you have to accept.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Striving for high ethical standards" would also involve not accusing Ms. Carey and others of "misrepresenting evidence" simply because the actual evidence does not fit your own view (to which for sure you will once again repeat your unfounded arguments that the trials were wrong, the statistics were wrong, the outcomes were not good, the researchers were wrong, etc etc etc, because they had to be wrong if the results do not fit your view).

Tom Weidig said...

As a clinician, she has a responsibility for marketing her services ethically. In fact, in Luxembourg it's even forbidden for doctors to market your services! Precisely to avoid misleading clients, and leading doctors to make unjustified claims just to get more patients.

I am not a clinician, and I do not market. I am not getting paid. I am a "simple" blogger who speaks out his mind. When I say that she is misrepresenting evidence, that's what I have in my mind and I argue it.

So tell me why my arguments are wrong?

She is wrong because she does not even mention the follow-up studies that had relapses and drop-outs.


As I wrote in the first post, she is misrepresenting evidence, because she does not refer to the follow-up study which had relapses and a high number of drop-outs.

Anonymous said...

She is running a business to make money. Who puts negative statistics in their business?

We all know the high number of dropouts or relapses.

Take it frm me, BE HONEST.
Even if you do not get as many clients or make as much money but trust me. THE REWARDS OF HONESTY AND SEEING A SMILING FACE are greater than paper money.

If i were you Brenda, i wud put everything honestly. I do sell a service (not stuttering related) wherein i mention clearly that i CAN do this and i CANNOT do this. And its a joy to run such a business. :)

Anonymous said...

1 Dollar made with honesty gives you more satisfaction that 1 million dollars made based on false info and misleading people.

Take the example of the bible story

The temple was big and beautiful. Many people came there to worship God. Inside the temple were some big money boxes. People put money in them. The money was for the temple and all that was used in worship to God.
One day Jesus sat across from the money boxes. He saw many rich people put in lots of money. Then one poor woman, a widow, walked up to the boxes. She put in two small copper coins worth less than a penny.
Jesus looked at his friends. "This poor woman put in more than the rich people did," he said. "Here's why: the rich people still have much money left. But this woman only had two coins. She did not have any more money. The rich people only gave part of what they had. She gave all of what she had."