>It makes more sense to target exams based on your risk of having issues. From my perspective, that's exactly the point of these basic preventative labs - how

>It makes more sense to target exams based on your risk of having issues. From my perspective, that's exactly the point of these basic preventative labs - how do you even know what you might be at risk for if you haven't established a baseline? As we saw on the thread about cancer earlier today - early detection has had a greater impact than new treatments. I had a doctor who was willing to do basic blood tests and he helped me create a plan of sorts about what I needed in the way of long-term awareness, nutrition, etc. And then he retired. Since then, the doctors that I have spoken with have had an attitude in line with yours, IE: call me when you are sick. But that's a core problem with our health care system - the emphasis is entirely on treating symptoms of the disease rather than on prevention. And this to my thinking is why men in particular are statistically low users of health care - because they give up on playing the game.