| Popis: |
This chapter analyzes two examples, one from endocrinology and one from neuroscience, to show that undertreatment and overtreatment are major medical issues that are very much intertwined with the twin diagnostic problems of under- and overdiagnosis. If physicians do not correctly diagnose a disease (or if they miss it altogether), then there is very little hope that they will be able to treat it effectively. On the other hand, if physicians diagnose “disease” that does not cause suffering for the patient, then they might end up causing the patient harm from the subsequent overtreatment of the condition. Therefore, in addition to research on the causal basis of diseases, physicians also need to improve their diagnostic practices by carefully selecting the appropriate screening and/or diagnostic tests and by appealing to clinical findings to aid in interpretation of their results. |
