Do you really think doctors would perform unnecessary expensive tests just so they can pay off the loans they took out to pay for the equipment (and probably pay down med school loans too?) I do too. I have been a doctor for 50 years. They way we do things and the problems they face now are very different than when I started out in medicine. I did the first successful CPR ever done in California and the first kidney dialysis ever done in New York. Now they are both so commonplace they can be performed without a doctor present. In the 1950s, checking a patient for disease was done using the stethoscope, looking in the back of the eyes with a ophthalmoscope, careful palpation and percussion, a limited # of blood, urine, feces and sputum tests, and a few kinds of X Rays. Biopsy of the kidney or liver was very new and a big deal. No MRI’s, no CAT scans and no stem cells yet.
Type 2 diabetes was called maturity onset diabetes because we only saw it over age 50. Now it is a pandemic even among young children.
We doctors are all doing the best and the most we can but we’re falling behind. Patients have high expectations when they come to the doctor. On the typical American diet and lifestyle, in their 40s they are likely going to, or already have multiple medical problems. And also high expectations for medical miracles. If you the doctor don’t check them for every disease they have heard about on TV and in Parade Magazine, well they probably are going to find another doctor. People like lots of tests. Patients like doctors who do a lot of testing. That’s why they like specialists, because of all their neat and very expensive tests. There you go, that’s human nature.