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Here's a concrete example from my own life. I've had a very minor and benign heart condition my whole life. Switching doctors after I moved across the country t

Here's a concrete example from my own life. I've had a very minor and benign heart condition my whole life. Switching doctors after I moved across the country they're like: "We should do an echocardiogram to just check that it hasn't changed." They do the ECG and find a really crazy high blood pressure in my heart so they think I have pulmonary hypertension. This kicks off: - A sleep study - Lung capacity study - Restricted travel (they didn't want me to fly - which was a problem with my consulting work) - A full-on cardiac catheter procedure - which is outpatient, but still a procedure where they put you under twilight sedation and insert large metal sheath into your groin (femoral artery) Easily a dozen doctors visits, thousands of dollars in additional tests, and multiple weeks of time altogether. Also, non-trivial risks of infection and complication from the procedure. On top of that, it's a mental thing. Every twinge of a muscle in my chest would cause a spike of concern, I'd sit around worrying about my heart inflating and bursting, etc. All to (thankfully) find out that definitively 100% that the ECG was a false positive and I'm perfectly fine. One kicker to this though is that I was initially rejected for health insurance at a new job (pre ACA) as I'd had this procedure. It took patiently explaining over and over again to insurance people the above before they would accept me.

y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
I'd like to see some data on the rate of false-positives for this type of scenario. I can only assume your situation was an edge case and that were it indeed a serious problem, you would be singing a different tune. Clearly there is some benefit to using ECG as a diagnostic tool to save lives, so your scenario doesn't necessarily negate the ones that are truly cardiovascular problems. Not that you don't have a valid argument (you do and thanks for sharing btw), but it's a matter of weighing the total outcome across the board I think.
vageli 7y ago
I had a hyphema of my retina. Each time I visit a new doctor and they check my pupil dilation, I can tell they are disturbed when they move to that eye and it does not react. I've had doctors express alarm and tell me they were going to run tests on my head. Now I just tell them before they inspect me and avoid the whole thing altogether.
audiometry 7y ago
I had similar experience with crappy ECG suggesting I had some horrid heart condition. After a fraught week, learned it was totally false. Now each time I get the ECG, get the same false positive, I bother about it less.

y-c-o-m-b 7y ago

I'd like to see some data on the rate of false-positives for this type of scenario. I can only assume your situation was an edge case and that were it indeed a serious problem, you would be singing a different tune. Clearly there is some benefit to using ECG as a diagnostic tool to save lives, so your scenario doesn't necessarily negate the ones that are truly cardiovascular problems. Not that you don't have a valid argument (you do and thanks for sharing btw), but it's a matter of weighing the total outcome across the board I think.

vageli 7y ago

I had a hyphema of my retina. Each time I visit a new doctor and they check my pupil dilation, I can tell they are disturbed when they move to that eye and it does not react. I've had doctors express alarm and tell me they were going to run tests on my head. Now I just tell them before they inspect me and avoid the whole thing altogether.

audiometry 7y ago

I had similar experience with crappy ECG suggesting I had some horrid heart condition. After a fraught week, learned it was totally false. Now each time I get the ECG, get the same false positive, I bother about it less.