This is the main gist of an email I received recently
after doing an item on TV lamenting the fact that we – doctors and patients
alike - have become a test-obsessed culture, that is, we have a strong belief
that the more we test, the better we will do when the plain – although largely
unacceptable – reality is that except for certain specific circumstances
(colonoscopies for colon cancer, once-in-a-while cholesterol testing, a few
others), most testing – and indeed most office visits for the purpose of screening
(such as regular check-ups, frequent blood pressure checks etc)- will not alter
the medical outcome and in fact, can often lead to a good deal of misery –
anxiety over results that turn out to be false positives, anxiety over becoming
a patient who requires being seen often, surgical interventions with biopsies
that can lead to infections and scarring and chronic pain, etc, etc.
Anyway, two of the main points I was trying to raise in
that item are that the elements of staying healthy are largely under our own
control and we don’t need expensive doctors to tell us what to do (you don’t
need a weatherman to tell you which way the wind blows) and that we waste a ton
of medical dollars by over-reliance on medical care.
So here’s the email (with a bit of soft editing for
grammar).
What a wonderful show this morning. I agree 150 percent that people love going to the doctor for things that are not real medical problems or just want to have someone to listen to them. It is a total waste of medical dollars.
I am an 80-year-young woman who has worked hard from age 12 and I still walk all over the place and spend hours out in my garden, weather permitting these days. I knit and crochet and I am in the middle of teaching myself to cross stitch.
I cook all my meals and I eat healthy. I have no cholesterol and no sugar as I am not a junk food junky even though I was a waitress for 40 years and there was plenty of French fries and other crappy food that I could eat. I do have a bloody caesar or a glass of wine once in a while just to be sociable. And I see my doctor only once a year for my yearly checkup.
