Posted on 07/01/2014 2:30:21 AM PDT by SoFloFreeper
The nation’s second-largest physicians’ organization said Monday that healthy women who are not pregnant do not need routine pelvic exams, a controversial recommendation based on its analysis that, on balance, the manual screening does more harm than good.
The American College of Physicians, which represents 137,000 internal medicine physicians and related specialists, said the diagnostic procedure causes some women discomfort, anxiety, pain and additional medical costs, and may keep some from seeing their doctors. Yet it does little to detect ovarian cancer or other disorders.
(Excerpt) Read more at m.washingtonpost.com ...
It's a reasonable thing to ask exactly who is gaining the greatest benefit from many routine medical screening procedures. Is it the patient? Or the hospital, imaging center, laboratory, and the doctor?
Compare the breast cancer survival statistics in the UK where mammograms don’t start until age 50 and are done only every three years with the US where annual mammograms starting at age 40 are the norm. A woman with breast cancer in the US has a 95% chance of being alive in 5 years. In the UK only 78% survive 5 years. Obamacare death panels are pushing for mammograms every other year starting at age 50 and are telling us it won’t make any “statistical difference” in survival. Ditto for annual PSA tests.
There are some diseases that by the time you don't feel well and show syptoms, it is too late.
A routine annual exam saved my life. I felt fine. Turns out I had cancer.
Thank you for the links. I love the title of that book!
I am happy that you are well. Truly.
But you have no idea if that test saved you. Maybe a week later you would have felt symptoms. You will never know.
I know we are being manipulated by medical practitioners. We are scared into and guilted into most testing and into taking pharmaceutical drugs.
Again I am happy you are happy. But your story doesn’t prove the necessity of invasive medical tests for the majority of society.
I believe the cervix itself has very little feeling, so you’re not going to feel anything or even notice anything until the cancer has spread back into the body or has chewed away at it so badly that there are symptoms...by which time it’s way too late.
A pap smear is a very simple test (if somewhat unpleasant!) and not “invasive.” And doctors are not getting wealthy on doing unnecessary pap smears or any of the other dire things Barry “Blame the Doctor” Obama would have you believe.
You do what you want to do.
I’ll do what I want to do.
But I really don’t want to pay for what you want to do.
That is what government type health care does. It makes us all pay for what others want.
I want as little to do with doctors and hospitals as possible. That is my prerogative.
Others feel differently. Whatever floats your boat.
Is he obseesive-compulsive too...most hypos, like my ex-wife are!
my best friend is a GYN and she was telling me that this is the trend, and she disapproves mightily. she said they want question patients as to whether they wear a helmet when riding a bike or if they have a gun in the house etc. rather than examine the patients. IMO ovarian and cervical cancers are killers and I would never go without an annual exam, if I can help it.
British people tend not to go to the doctor AT ALL, much less annuals. There is a huuuuuge cultural difference between Americans and the British on this subject. I direct everyone to Sarah Lyall’s “Field Guild to the English,” in which she has an hilarious and poignant chapter on English people’s attitudes towards doctors and dentists.
You’re not fighting fair.
You’re using FACTS!
;-)
Aren’t cervical cancers pretty much caused by STDs? I thought that was the new diagnosis.
Certainly people should do whatever they want in terms of their own healthcare. It’s just - yet again - who will pay for it?
Yes, he is. Everyone jokes about hypos but they are destructive to our healthcare system and to their families! And, sadly, they all tend to live into their hundreds...irony of ironies.
Excellent point.
Oh...forgot.
When abnormal cervical cells turn into actual cervical cancer (most do not by the way), there are symptoms.
Pain, bleeding, pain during sex, etc.
But of course the medical establishment wants to treat the “problem” before it is actually cancer.
Breast cancers as well.
But “they” don’t want to talk about that. They just want all of us to be scared and willing to let them do whatever they want to us. For a price of course.
I stand by my statement. If you are sick beyond what you can treat at home then see someone. If you feel fine, then live your life.
I haven’t been to a doctor in 20 years and haven’t been sick a day in all that time. That’s sorta how I know I’m healthy.
Yup. Cervical cancers are mostly caused by infections usually caught from a sexual partner.
So, if you have an STD, you need to probably do an annual. If you don’t, you can skip that test.
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