If money was no object, should you run every medical test?
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN people link it as a short, funny and accurate explanation of why over-testing and over-screening can do harm.
What it is
A doctor from Medlife Crisis explains in under three minutes why even a rich patient should not simply order every medical test, touching on pre-test probability and Bayesian reasoning. False positives make blanket testing counterproductive.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2019 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Recommends joosters · 2019-03 · on “I Now Have a Cardiologist”
There's a great (and short) video suggesting why it's not a good idea to run as many medical tests as possible, and it's not because of the cost: [this video]
Recommends tasty_freeze · 2021-05 · on “Are we screening too much for skin cancer? It's complicated”
An under 3-minute video by a funny and informative doctor explaining this (youtube handle "medlife crisis"): [this video]
Cites user_7832 · 2024-03 · on “FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor”
I get your point, however I think there are a few confounding things. For a lot of people, if you get a positive result from a test that a doctor brushes off that's not going to go well. I'm very much in favor of more testing personally, there are almost certainly folks who're on SSRIs who'd benefit more from Vit D/Mg supplementation for example. Another thing I seem to remember in his video was that a tumor is not necessarily dangerous. Out of a hundred (say) tumors in a person's life, only maybe 5 are risky. But I'm paraphrasing this badly. Edit: [this video] is one of the videos, however I think he's talked about this more (likely on instagram or another video too).