Most of what we think of as preventive medicine is actually not that at all. Mammograms, pap smears, colonoscopies, all of these are actually early detection of disease. Abnormal results on any of these tests prompts more testing and sometimes treatment, which may or may not result in better health or a delay in becoming ill or dying. True prevention of disease would include healthy diet, exercise, accident prevention, safe sex and adequate birth control. These are the kinds of things that truly keep people from getting sick, but most of these are not truly in the scope of care provided by physicians. Today I got a letter in the mail from a company called Life Line Screening, inviting me to "participate in a simple potentially lifesaving screening to assess...risk for stroke, abdominal aortic aneurysms and other vascular diseases." There will be a bunch of ultrasound technicians in a nearby community center who will be eager to check my blood vessels for narrowings, and m...
The cost of health care in the US is higher than anywhere else in the world, and yet we are not healthier than our peer nations. In fact, in terms of such measures as infant mortality and life span, we don't measure up. Why is this? Many people involved in providing or receiving care have some pretty good ideas about what costs so much, and what we can do to reduce costs and improve quality. Sharing these stories is an important step in creating affordable universal health care.