Cleaning the House of Medicine

A recent report in JAMA Internal Medicine highlights prevailing medical practices that should be "reconsidered" in 2015 based on the weight of evidence. The paper, appropriately, is written in the matter-of-fact style customary for the peer-reviewed literature. To some extent, that semblance of analytical calm belies the storm swirling between the lines of the report, and the mess it has long been making in the House of Medicine. The authors, for instance, note that excessive zeal for cancer screening results in "unnecessary surgery and complications." As a statement, that is rather bland, and even when statistics are attached to show scale, as the authors do, it likely fails to evoke any deep impression. But consider any time you have been through surgery yourself, either as the patient, or as a family member. Unless you are the rare individual who has avoided the OR entirely, even by proxy, those occasions are likely indelible in your memory, and easy to recall. Why? Because when we, or loved ones, are the patient, surgery is a very big deal. There is, inevitably, a major disruption to our lives and routines, and often, at least a brief period of truly noteworthy pain. (As an aside, the pain I felt waking from anesthesia after one of my ACL reconstruction surgeries was orders of magnitude more excruciating than any I have otherwise known, and that despite the fact that I have broken roughly 20 bones doing various rambunctious things.) And even these memorable unpleasantri...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news