QUACK-ERY AND QUIRK-ERY

In the spirit of medical ethics, quackery is the promotion of unproven or fraudulent medical practices and a quack is a person who pretends, professionally or publicly, to have skill, knowledge, or qualifications that he/she doesn’t possess.

Quackery’s salient feature is aggressive promotion of a quirky cause.

Therefore, quackery while plying any trade, especially the medical profession, can be the result of a quirky state of mind.

The established normal procedure is to make a clinical assessment (which is comprised of a comprehensive history and physical examination) with the view of establishing a clinical diagnosis; so as to provide a remedy; after investigations have been done for the confirmation of clinical diagnosis.

Development of a management plan for an unexamined patient is quite quirky.

In the same vein, treatment without having a clinical diagnostic base is quacky.

In determining whether a person is committing quackery, the central question is what is acceptable evidence for the efficacy and safety of whatever treatments, cures, regimens or procedures the alledged quack advocates.

Well, you can be odd at times, in a good way- without being exactly quirky; but being quacky is simply being out of line.

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