Overdiagnosis: The silent pandemic of the West?

Abstract

An intense and widespread phenomenon of modern western societies is our recourse to doctors for preventive reasons in order to maintain good health. Although this sounds very logical and may have a strong scientific basis because it expresses the recommendations of the medical community, various questions arise that require more attention to the issue. Questions such as: ‘what does good health mean?’, ‘what is a medical problem?’, ‘what exactly are we looking for during medical examinations?’, and ‘what is the relationship between medicine and society and its practices?’, will be discussed in this article.

Keywords

• medical practice
• pandemic
• overdiagnosis