No surprise to anyone reading this blog. BTW, it’s good to see our old friend Dr. Merenstein back in the news:
During your next routine medical checkup you have at least a 43 percent chance of undergoing an unnecessary medical test, a new study shows.
It’s not like you’re getting something for nothing. If you’re not having symptoms, and your doctor has no reason to suspect you have a problem, U.S. guidelines advise against giving you a routine urinalysis, electrocardiogram, or X-ray.
“This has more harm than benefit,” says Dan Merenstein, MD, director of research in family medicine at Georgetown University. “The problem is, there are so many false-positive results from these tests. They lead to other things, like biopsies.
Another reminder that more testing does not equal better medicine. I’ll have more on this a bit later.
