Your Health ;
; Do you really need that EKG or antibiotic?
; Doctors are identifying overused treatments.
; Here’s what’s at stake.
7Medical Procedures You Don’t Need
By
Elizabeth
Agnvall
Illustrations by
Roger Chouinard
Patients take note: Doctors are now com- piling lists of routine tests, treatments and rugs they’ve automatically been prescribing to many patients who really don’t need them.
The MRI you got when you hurt your back moving the
couch. The exercise stress test that’s part of your yearly
physical. The antibiotics you took for your sinus infection.
These are all targets in a new campaign to improve patient
safety by reducing the number of unnecessary procedures,
which also cost the nation billions each year.
It’s a sea change in medical thinking, one that could have
a profound effect on your own health care. More and more
physicians are warning that the overuse of some medical pro-
cedures can lead to patient anxiety, dangerous side effects,
pain, radiation exposure, unnecessary surgery—even death.
10
aarp.org/bulletin MAY 2012
