Too much healthcare

The editor of The BMJ is justified in calling for more scrutiny of harms,1 as did one of his predecessors: “Think harm always.”2 The term “practices of no net benefit” has been suggested,3 emphasising the need to consider the balance of benefits and harms, not merely one or the other.4The term “Too much medicine,” however, is ambiguous. Medicine means “the science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease” (Oxford English Dictionary). But in that sense the word is sometimes used to differentiate medicine and surgery. And medicine can also mean a medicinal product, a drug. In that case, the implication is that the harm from “too much medicine” is an adverse drug reaction, whereas all forms of medical practice are potentially harmful as well as potentially beneficial.We could be said to have too much of (almost) everything:Too many diagnostic tests (if used inappropriately)Too much technology (enabling too…
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