Quote:
Originally Posted by Golfer222
Could not agree with Golfing Eagles more.
As a board certified cardiologist I have seen many more complications from unnecessary testing than I care to imagine. Usually the docs succumbs to patient pressure or "just to be sure"
Case in point- screening stress test with no symptoms or risk factors for CAD. Stress test comes back mildly abnormal ( of which 40-50% do) , onto a nuclear stress test with again a mild abnormality (30 % false positive rate) , onto a heart cath in which a spiral dissection of a coronary occurs obligating a coronary bypass.
Now did anybody really do this patient any favors.
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There is a fine line between proactive and reactive medicine. My 80 year old cardiologist put me through all the tests, even though I didn't show any significant signs. . The only data point was and still is, my grandfather had a heart attack at 50, my dad at 60. . that's it for me. . borderline hypertensive . . framingham heart study said low risk, exactly the same score for another friend who had a heart attack. .
the calcium scan came back at 94. . . where the 100% score is total fossilization .. . . but agreed that there were no invasive tests. . . or at least these did not appear to me to be invasive. .
the smoking gun. . so I am on the same meds as those who have had heart attacks. .
the body is still a black box . . . until genetic medicine and AI is perfected, it will always be a black box. . and humans are humans. . the data and more data is great, but a human can only handle so much data, and that's where AI will really change medicine . . . being able to test thousands of data points for better predictors. .
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full disclosure. . . i am a certified data junkie in the corporate world, building corporate data warehouses and building forecasting models. .