Checkup

The good doctor wrote:

>>also, this may sound silly, but whats full body checkup do? what do they check for?

>>A full body check up involves you bending over and the nurse put on gloves and then shove her fingers — just kidding. Doc can enlighten you better on this subject.

There’s no such thing as FULL body checkup. Otherwise all the blood in your body wouldn’t have sufficed. Not to mention it will cost you some rocket figures. Some simple test will cost several hundreds by itself, alone.

What they offer are usually called ‘general screening’ involving combinations of very simple and cheap tests to detect a certain abnormalities that may suggest something else.

A test that turns out normal does not necessary mean that you are entirely healthy. An abnormal result also may not mean that you are really sick. In order to interprete that, you will have to look at the person as a whole and take into consideration many other factors. There are very frequent false positives and false negatives that give people either a false sense of security or undue anxiety.

For example, higher uric acid level can be associated with high cholesterol level. And by controlling cholesterol level, the uric acid level may come back to normal by itself and it doesn’t mean that you have gout.

A proper health screen will involve going to a doctor and talk to him, answer his questions, get examined. After that he might give you a physical exam and if really necessary, order some tests. And these tests will be specially tailored for you taking into consideration of all the factors including your age, if you have just had your menses etc. I have female patient who went for a so called ‘full body checkup’ after her menses and came back with red blood cells in urine, full field. She was told she has kidney cancer.

A good doctor will likely to have a rough idea of what kind of result he will be getting and he just need the evidence to confirm it. Remember, just by talking to the patient, a good doctor can come to 80% of diagnosis. Another 10% by physical examination. And the last 10% by investigation (tests).

For a doctor, investigation is just a tool. It is meant to confirm what he suspects. It is not meant for him to forego his diagnostic skill and rely on the test result to tell him what you have – I can train a chimpanzee to do the same easily. But these days, some doctors have fallen slave to these tests. And they are now treating the test results instead of the patient.

Sadly also, the general public has been misled to believe that the test result means either ticket to eternal life or ticket to hell.

Patient A : “Doctor, is my cholesterol level normal?”

Doctor : “Yes.”

Patient B : “What about mine?”

Doctor : “Yours too.”

Patient B : “But mine is 4.9 and his 4.7.”

Doctor : “Yeah, both fall into normal range.”

Patient B : “But his is lower than mine!”

Patient A : “Buahahahahaha!”

Doctor : “Like I said, both are in normal range.”

Patient B : “I’m sure you can give me some medicine so that my cholesterol can be 4.7 or lower.”

Patient A : “Nyeh! Nyeh! Nyeh!”

Patient B : “Pretty puleeeezeeee! Doctor!” *bat bat eyelids*

Doctor : “Go get fucked!”

Patient A : “BUAARRRGHAGHAGHAGHAAA~~~”