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by yyyyip 2586 days ago
We had a medical student who had her abdomen scanned as part of teaching. They found a cystic looking thing on her pancreas. She ended up getting it excised - it was benign and would've never caused problems, but she had multiple complications and 2 months in hospital as a result of the surgery.

I think Doctors (I am one) definitely err on the side of overtreating in those uncertain situations. Just like politicians, it feels more caring to act than to not act.

If you MRI 1000 people and leave the vague results in the hands of a bunch of physicians, they will tend to be interventional. This will lead to a spate of overtreatment.

Ways around this would be to consent patients for watchful waiting in the case of uncertain lesions. Even so, telling people they have weird looking lumps that you're not going to treat will cause serious anxiety.