JAMA: Doing Less Is Sometimes Enough

I wrote a commentary in this week’s issue of JAMA:

There is increasing concern that physicians are practicing too much medicine. For instance, statins were originally intended to treat patients with the most significant risk factors for cardiovascular disease, but new criteria will result in treatment of substantially larger numbers of adults. Likewise, the number of women screened with mammograms, and then receiving invasive surgery, seems to have increased. Accordingly, it is encouraging that with a common disorder like appendicitis, that trend may be reversing.

Go read the whole thing.

@aaronecarroll

Aaron Carroll

Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS is co-Editor-in-Chief of The Incidental Economist and tweets at @aaronecarroll. He is the Chief Health Officer at Indiana University. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Dean for Research Mentoring at the Indiana University School of Medicine. In addition to contributing regularly to The New York Times and the Atlantic, he is the author of four books, most recently The Bad Food Bible.

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Aaron Carroll

Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS is co-Editor-in-Chief of The Incidental Economist and tweets at @aaronecarroll. He is the Chief Health Officer at Indiana University. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Associate Dean for Research Mentoring at the Indiana University School of Medicine. In addition to contributing regularly to The New York Times and the Atlantic, he is the author of four books, most recently The Bad Food Bible.

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