Dr John M

cardiac electrophysiologist, cyclist, learner

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What is normal and what is disease?

October 7, 2015 By Dr John

Future generations of doctors will face different challenges than I did. When I started training, disease was easier to spot than it is now.

Today, the line between sickness and wellness has blurred–and it gets blurrier all the time. The quantified self movement stands to make this worse.

In a profit-driven healthcare climate, disease feeds the business model. One way to drive sales of drugs and procedures is to create more diseases. And to do that, one has only to medicalize the human condition.

Why doctors (and patients) discount the resilience of the human body perplexes me.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Allen Frances at a Lown Institute meeting this year. He is an emeritus professor in Psychiatry at Duke and an outspoken voice against overdiagnosis and overtreatment in mental health.

It’s less than two minutes, and it’s a metaphor for what ails much of our broken healthcare system.

Remember…When we overdiagnosis and overtreat, we have less attention and resources to treat those with real illness.

JMM

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Related posts:

  1. Dr. Bernard Lown and the first rule of doctoring
  2. Medicine, lifestyle disease and the pool-safety post
  3. Let’s stop the unnecessary treatment of heart disease
  4. Heart disease 101: AF and Coronary Artery Disease — related, incidental or both?

Filed Under: Doctoring, Health Care Tagged With: overdiagnosis, overtreatment

John Mandrola, MD

Welcome, Enjoy, Interact. john-mandrola I am a cardiac electrophysiologist practicing in Louisville KY. I am also a husband to a palliative care doctor, a father, a bike racer, and a regular columnist at theHeart.org | Medscape

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Find me on theheart.org | Medscape Cardiology

  • Electrophysiology commentary on Medscape/Cardiology

Mandrola on Medscape

  • My Medscape column on general medical matters

For patients...Educational posts

  • 13 things to know about Atrial Fibrillation — 2014
  • A new cure of AF
  • Adding a new verb to doctoring: To deprescribe is to do a lot
  • AF ablation — 2015 A Cautionary Note
  • AF Ablation in 2012–An easier journey?
  • Atrial Flutter — 15 facts you may want to know.
  • Benign PVCs: A heart rhythm doctor’s approach.
  • Caution with early Cardioversion
  • Decisions of 2 low-risk cases of PAF
  • Defining success in AF ablation in 2014
  • Four commonly asked questions on AF ablation
  • Inflammation and AF — Get off the gas
  • Ten things to expect after AF ablation
  • The medical decsion as a gamble
  • The most important verb in our health crisis
  • Wellness Requires Ownership

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