In 2008, after 27 years of school and training, I was let loose into the world as a doctor, researcher and assistant professor at the University of Colorado. Like many new doctors I felt a need to establish myself as an expert in front of my patients, fellow doctors and the world. I also knew that I didn’t know everything and never would.

When I started my career and a patient came to me with something they had read on the internet, if I had never heard of it, I would tell them “I’ve never heard of that.” Rather than that being the end of the conversation it was the beginning. At first, I told patients I would look it up and then get back to them. I did this to preserve the illusion that I really was an expert and that “doing research” on their questions was complicated. While doing this research really didn’t take a lot of time, it did start to add up, particularly as these questions happened every day, multiple times a day. Getting back to them by phone or email also took time.

After a couple years, I realized that I could save time by getting on the internet while patients were in front of me, do the research to determine if this thing had any merit, and tell them right away the results of my research.

Another couple years later, I had a real breakthrough. I recognized that I could teach patients to do their own research and make their own sound decisions. Once people knew how to see bullshit they stopped asking me if they should take the supplements their friends recommended on Facebook, and instead asked me if I thought it was bullshit. As Medical Bullshit has gotten faster, more expensive and more dangerous I saw that it was my responsibility to help empower as many people as I could reach to empower themselves.