Harm doesn’t just come in the form of side-effects or further testing. The “cons” of any treatment also include the costs, which can be financial, emotional, and the costs of the individual’s time.
This was the year of the health review – mental health care, Medicare, private health insurance, the pharmacy industry … and the list goes on. But how much movement was there on policy?
The evidence suggests too much medicine is doing us harm, particularly when treating knee pain, back pain, chest pain and screening for prostate cancer.
By forgetting that medicine postpones death rather than saving lives, we persuade ourselves it might somehow keep extending our life and come to view death as a failure of medicine.
While the extent of the problem is unclear, we know that hospitals doctors overuse diagnostic tests. Involving patients in decision-making may be one of the best options for improving the situation.
Researchers have been talking about the dangers of overdiagnosis for some time. But now a national survey shows most people aren’t told about the risk it poses to their health – and they want to know.
Screening for prostate cancer using the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test for men with no symptoms is controversial: experts are divided, and Australians are not routinely well-informed. Prostate cancer…
Across 38 years in tobacco control, I have been asked countless times in media interviews if I ever smoked. It’s often an early question. I always unhesitatingly explain that I did: I stopped in my mid…
“It might do me some good and it won’t hurt to give it a go.” How often have you heard a phrase like this? Most people have naïve optimism about medical care. That’s the finding of a systematic review…
A panel convened by medical journal BMJ to investigate whether it was right to correct rather than retract two pieces featuring a mistake about side effects from statins has endorsed the journal’s decision…
Earlier this year, leading American cancer scientists called for a set of changes to deal with the problem of over-diagnosis and over-treatment caused by cancer screening. Efforts to raise awareness and…
Social media can help raise awareness of health issues, engaging people in discussion and encouraging them to take action. But thoughtless adherence to such trends has the potential to cause harm. New…
Antipsychotic drugs are usually considered to be one of the 20th century’s major medical breakthroughs. They are often believed to be so effective that they brought about the closure of the old mental…
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne