One of the first tenets of medicine is “Do No Harm.” Yet, the incentives in medicine (fee for procedure) often leads to too much being done. For example my brother recently had a second total knee replacement. Yes he’s overweight but he had no cardiac symptoms. He was referred to a cardiologist and had a cardiac angiogram done as a “precautionary step.” I was appalled because there is no evidence that this is useful and may indeed be harmful – both to the body and wallet.
Barb Williams sent along this recent article from the Atlantic. It is well titled “When Evidence Says No, but Doctors Say Yes.” The bottom line – do your research, be a skeptic and look for an advocate that can interpret the data for you.