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From Men's Journal:
Every time you walk into a physician's office, you run the risk of overtreatment: Tests you don't need, medications that are ineffective (or dangerous), procedures that cause more problems than they solve. In many cases the best thing for your health is to do nothing.
Make no mistake: A good doctor is, or should be, your most trusted resource if you're sick. If you're not sick and he wants to treat you anyway, that doesn't necessarily make him a bad doctor. But it does make him a player in a system that operates according to the unspoken and often unexamined assumption that more treatment is better for the patient. It's unquestionably better for the financial health of the stakeholders in the system: the doctors, the pharmaceutical industry, the health-insurance companies, and the hospitals. If you don't know how the game is played, the odds go up that you'll wind up the loser.
What do you people think, will people change if they know this?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 24 2014, @11:18PM
I was once offered a drug for gout. I knew that the
drug was new, and not part of the standard of care. I refused it. The drug?
Celebrex. It was being heavily advertised at the time. This was
before it was found to have side effects more severe than initially disclosed.
I went through a period of taking generic Allopurinol and changing my diet.
That's consistent with the standard of care. Know the standard of care
for your condition. If the physician deviates from it with some new drug,
ask why. In some cases, you should INSIST on the prior standard of care.
Why be a guinea pig? 3-digit ID, but I prefer not to disclose health info.