The Case of Dr. Oz: Ethics, Evidence, and Does Professional Self-Regulation Work?

Jon C Tilburt, Megan Allyse, Frederic W Hafferty

Dr. Mehmet Oz is widely known not just as a successful media personality donning the title "America's Doctor(®)," but, we suggest, also as a physician visibly out of step with his profession. A recent, unsuccessful attempt to censure Dr. Oz raises the issue of whether the medical profession can effectively self-regulate at all. It also raises concern that the medical profession's self-regulation might be selectively activated, perhaps only when the subject of professional censure has achieved a level of public visibility. We argue here that the medical profession must look at itself with a healthy dose of self-doubt about whether it has sufficient knowledge of or handle on the less visible Dr. "Ozes" quietly operating under the profession's presumptive endorsement.