Wednesday 12 September 2018

Medicine isn’t a quick fix for society’s ills. Overdiagnosis can cause more harm | Zara Aziz

Medicine isn’t a quick fix for society’s ills. Overdiagnosis can cause more harm | Zara Aziz  When health problems are triggered by economic issues, they are medicalised as anxiety and depression instead of poverty

There are many patients who live on in doctors’ memories. Lily was one such patient – a widow in her 80s with a spring in her step and a ready smile. An infrequent visitor to the consulting room, she was mostly found in her garden, tending to her flowers and vegetables. An accidental fall led to a head injury. A subsequent CT scan excluded a bleed on her brain, but showed a small tumour in the temporal lobe, a part of the brain processing sensory input. “It is slow growingand unlikely to cause any foreseeable problems,” her neurosurgeon said. The Guardian

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