About this item

The author of the highly acclaimed Overdiagnosed describes seven widespread assumptions that encourage excessive, often ineffective, and sometimes harmful medical care. You might think the biggest problem in medical care is that it costs too much. Or that health insurance is too expensive, too uneven, too complicated - and gives you too many forms to fill out. But the central problem is that too much medical care has too little value. Dr. H. Gilbert Welch is worried about too much medical care. It's not to deny that some people get too little medical care, rather that the conventional concern about "too little" needs to be balanced with a concern about "too much": too many people being made to worry about diseases they don't have - and are at only average risk to get; too many people being tested and exposed to the harmful effects of the testing process; too many people being subjected to treatments they don't need - or can't benefit from.



About the Author

H. Gilbert Welch

Dr. H. Gilbert Welch is a nationally recognized expert on the effects of medical screening who has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, NPR, and in the New York Times and Washington Post. He and the coauthors of Overdiagnosed, Dr. Lisa M. Schwartz and Dr. Steven Woloshin--nationally recognized experts in risk communication--are professors at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice.



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