Doctors are never punished for overdiagnosis

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Considerable “havoc may be wrought by untrammeled overtesting” but it is “perceived underdiagnosis that arouses legal and moral wrath."

In many respects, well-intentioned preventive medicine may, quite frequently, reveal things that may not benefit from early intervention, and worse, can make patients fret unnecessarily or have surgery that sets them back. Dr. Gilbert Welch in Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health, challenges conventional wisdom and alerting all of us, especially doctors of potential harm from aggressive diagnosis and intervention.

Caveat emptor (buyer beware)

Primum non nocere ("First, do no harm")

Treating some small or early conditions that don’t need to be treated can lead to side effects or new problems otherwise known as iatrogenesis.

Some conditions aren’t conditions at all – they may be false positives or they may be real but short-lived even without treatment. Welch argues to wait if conditions permit and there are no symptoms.

Get a doctor you can trust, particularly in that they have no conflict of interest in treating you—Do they profit by doing more or do they profit more, the healthier you are? As a practitioner, I really notice when a surgeon keeps the door opened but doesn’t just jump in and cut, overtest or overtreat.

Your doctor may follow the rules, explicitly, but the guidelines, protocols and standards they follow are changing as research and observation dictates. It wasn’t that long ago when we began questioning antibiotic overuse in ear infections, tympanostomy tubes and even the sacred tonsillectomy. Witness what has just happened with PSA levels, cholesterol and hypertension targets.

Think greater quality at less cost and while maintaining accessibility and let that be our guideline.

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non beneficial intervention