[shabda]

We could argue about what comprehensive means, but if you see my post below, the test I recommended has blood work for internal organs health check, chest xray, abdomen ultrasound and (pap smear/mamogram etc depending on gender/age). This requires one single blood draw, and no significant levels of radiation.

Most tests do have some degree of false positives, but there a number of defensive diagnostic tests which are nearly error free and clinically significant

To name some: * BUN + Serum creatinine - Kidney health * LFT - Liver health * Sugar levels - Early detection of diabetes

I am not recommending a MRI, but everyone should get an annual health check, for some values of comprehensive.

[melling]

It would be great to have a Hackers Guide to Healthcare. What's important, what the numbers mean, etc. I understand that certain tests (e.g. PSA) have false positives, but if we ever want to crawl out of the Dark Ages, we need to make some forward progress. Wearables, "tricorders", and early detection blood tests should be able to offer us something better in our lifetimes.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-07-03/star-treks-t...

[Osmium]

Not disagreeing about your post at all, which sounds entirely reasonable to me (I'm not a doctor), but I think this is worth emphasising:

> Most tests do have some degree of false positives,

I think many people don't appreciate the danger of false positives.

The complications that can come from unnecessary treatments, the dangers that more invasive tests might cause, the aggregate effect of all the time and expense the extra testing causes (e.g. by putting a strain on hospitals who may need that MRI for someone else), the negative emotional consequences of the stress from the false diagnosis, the possible financial implications etc. Even a very small chance of a false positive can have huge consequences if the test is deployed widely enough.

[zo1]

>"I think many people don't appreciate the danger of false positives."

Yes, but to most people, we compare that danger with the danger of a positive test that never gets done. More information is never a bad thing. And I'm reasonably sure that for almost every test that can have a dangerous false-positive, there is also a corresponding test that can corroborate those results, if not detect the false-positive.

[walshemj]

Yep you don't want to hear "ooh " that looks a bit small when you have an ultrasound scan of you kidneys :-(