Regular health checks (a.k.a routine visits) are probably the bane of many a primary care physician’s existence. I can’t imagine many things more boring than running through a standardized list of questions with a patient who feels absolutely fine, then going through a list of lab values that are almost invariably within the normal reference range, and finally topping it off with a perfunctory physical … Read more
Category: Diagnostics
How well do doctors understand probability?
I’m very interested in how doctors think. How do we use the information gained from talking to and examining a patient to reach a reasonable list of likely diagnoses (a so called “differential”)? When we order a test, what specifically are we looking for, and how will we react to the result that comes back? More cynically, I’m curious about the extent to which we … Read more
How accurate are the covid tests?
One of the most frequent questions I’ve been getting recently is how accurate I think the covid tests are, and in particular the PCR tests. As it happens, a systematic review has recently been published in Evidence Based Medicine that looks at the covid tests (both PCR and antibody), so I thought it would be interesting to look in to the evidence together. This article … Read more
Breast cancer screening: saving lives?
After my article showing that prostate cancer screening with the PSA-test does more harm than good, I was asked to follow up with an article looking at breast cancer screening with mammography. That turned out to be easier said than done, because virtually all studies of breast cancer screening only report the effect of screening on breast cancer mortality, not on overall mortality.
As … Read more
PSA test for cancer screening: Good idea?
Should you get a PSA test to screen for prostate cancer? What are the advantages and disadvantages of screening? Do the potential benefits outweigh the potential harms? Those are the questions we will seek to answer in this article.
The problem is that prostate cancer is common, and for most people who have it, it is something that never causes any symptoms, and certainly not … Read more