[fencepost]

> Why would anyone see a doctor unless they had a health problem? (Or wanted health advice?)

Because "sedentary middle-aged American eating a typical American diet" (possibly including "fat" as well) might as well be considered a preexisting condition all by itself, and a simple checkup may catch something that can be addressed before it becomes a hospital visit. Most notable as things to watch out for are high blood pressure, high/poorly balanced cholesterol and diabetes or early signs of it. Two of those you can do some checking for at home fairly inexpensively, but cholesterol not so much.

Despite having health insurance (Thanks Obama! while it lasts) I haven't actually had a checkup in probably 5+ years, but after this I'm going to see about getting in and at the least getting bloodwork, etc. which I've been thinking about anyway. Clearly Jason Scott can't be called all that sedentary given all the walking he did during his heart attack, which is why this is a bit of a wakeup call.

Edit:

I'll throw in a surgeon's commentary from when my wife had her gallbladder out: "Men are stupid."

Context: He was noting that most gallbladder problems are in women, that 90% of gallbladders are removed laparoscopically as outpatient procedures, and that of the other 10% where people end up hospitalized most are men because "Men are stupid." Men will try to tough it out and won't go see a doctor until they're in so much pain that they end up in the ER, and the ER isn't going to dink around with a laparoscope for investigation - if things are that bad, they may well slice you open so they can see what's going on and yank it right then and there leaving a nice scar, at least one overnight in the hospital, and some significant movement restrictions while you're healing.

[Frondo]

Interesting. I was one of those stupid men who was immobilized with pain from acute cholecystitis, I went to the ER, and they still did it laparoscopically.

I did spend two nights in the hospital (one before the surgery, one after), but I'm surprised that surgery would be considered outpatient under any circumstances. Do they really send people home immediately after putting them under and rooting around in their chest cavities?

[fencepost]

The only reason my wife's involved an overnight stay was dehydration since she'd been unable to keep much of anything down for a couple days. That said, her surgery was scheduled after a pretty short series of doctor, ultrasound, surgeon, weekend, surgery.

[DanBC]

Your last paragraph - about men not seeing a doctor when they are in pain - doesn't seem to fit the context of people seeing a doctor when they have no symptoms.

And how many of those women needed surgery?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3679744/

[fencepost]

Based on my reading of that, a very significant majority.

From a quick read before I dash out the door, it looks like at most ~21% had surgery based on indefinite or vague symptoms. I'd say that there's a good chance that many or most of those cases should have received at the least other treatment before surgery and that some physicians started resorting to surgery too soon once that surgery became easier, cheaper and safer.

That still leaves the other 79%.