Post Author: George Lundberg, MD and Clifton Meador, MD

False assumptions and clinical errors in modern medical practice

George Lundberg, MD and Clifton Meador, MD

Physician

September 18, 2011

Here are 22 false assumptions, practice failures, and everyday clinical errors that we believe are common in modern medical practice:

1. Lack of appreciation of the phenomenon of physician persuasion and its hidden power. The placebo effect is scientific, potent, and worthy of use.

2. Lack of understanding of the power of prevalence or pretest probability in the diagnostic process, leading to frequent false positives and “overdiagnosis” of nonexistent diseases.

3. Lack …

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How prevalent are false diagnoses of disease?

George Lundberg, MD and Clifton Meador, MD

Conditions

July 31, 2011

Recently, we expressed concern about the effects on the accuracy of the diagnostic process of the increasing numbers of well and worried well entering the medical care system.

One of the consequences of this influx of well people (and the concomitant reduction in disease prevalence) is the generation of more false positive test results and false diagnoses of nonexistent diseases.

The medical literature is filled with studies on the accuracy of …

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