Doctors are known as angels in white, and they are supposed to guard everyone's life and health. The ever-developing new technologies and drugs should also bring new hope to many people who are suffering from diseases.
But in 2021, a doctor who claimed to be from Peking University Third Hospital published an article on Zhihu about doctors from a well-known tertiary hospital in Shanghai guiding cancer patients to over-treat, which caused an uproar.
In this regard, many doctors said: many surgeries do not need to be done, and many medicines do not need to be taken.
In Dr. Zhang Yu's description, what can "excessive medical treatment" look like?
A 50-year-old patient with liver metastasis of gastric cancer received NK immunotherapy from a biological company in Shanghai out of trust in the attending doctor.
This treatment is expensive and can be a significant expense for the patient.
Patients think they have found hope for life, but they don't know that everything is a deliberately guided "ineffective medical treatment".
At the time, there was no definitive medical evidence for this therapy, and it was not certified as effective and safe by the relevant regulatory authorities.
In the end, the patient passed away at home after several treatments and spent more than 10 times the usual medical expenses, leaving his family with a foreign debt of 100,000 yuan.
The holy place for treating the sick in our minds, the people who are most willing to believe unconditionally when they are helpless, actually bury one pit after another in the process of asking for help, which really makes us who don't know much about medical knowledge think about it carefully.
Of course, in order to control such chaos, the state has vigorously implemented a series of reforms in the medical and health system in recent years, which has improved this phenomenon to a certain extent, but as far as the current reality is concerned, we still have a long way to go.
It happens all around us, there are too many "ineffective medical treatments", many medicines should not be taken, and many surgeries do not have to be done.
According to a WHO survey, almost one-third of the patients who die from irrational medication in the world are a kind of "ineffective medical treatment".
In the mainland, Huang Jiefu, vice minister of the Ministry of Health, once said that the proportion of excessive medical treatment in the United States is the highest, reaching about 40%, which is slightly better in the mainland, but it is not much better.
The most common situation is that if we suffer from some illnesses such as colds, we will be prescribed a lot of medicine when we go to the hospital, if we go to the pharmacy to buy it, the shopping guide will almost follow you to recommend, anti-inflammatory, reduce fire, and even supplement vitamins, I can't wait to let you carry a sack back.
In fact, many minor diseases do not need to take medicine, even small stones, gallbladder polyps, liver hemangiomas, etc., which we usually think are terrible.
In some cases, these diseases actually have no effect on us, they are basically harmless, as long as they are controlled and observed, there is no need to treat them.
There are also stents arranged as soon as there is a problem with the heart, and patients with lumbar disc herniation who can heal themselves in the early stage are also pushed into the operating room.
More common than "over-medical" is "over-examination".
At present, medical methods are constantly improving, and many people are arranged for various CT, B-ultrasound and other examinations when they go to the hospital to see a doctor, and most of the time it is just a waste of medical resources and costs.
The important crux of "ineffective medical treatment" is the profit drive.
With the promotion of the national security system, most people can now use medical insurance to see a doctor. At the same time, most of the public hospitals on the mainland belong to the institutions with differential allocation, and the doctors work very hard, but in fact, the part of the salary allocated by the government is not very high.
This has led to some hospitals "using medicine to maintain medicine", and to a certain extent in the process of treatment, excessive medical treatment.
However, this is only part of the story, some private hospitals and other institutions are inherently profit-oriented, and we often see advertisements for individual private hospitals, boasting about a certain treatment.
Taking advantage of the patient's fear, such a hospital will often recommend a variety of tests and treatments as soon as you enter the door, which can be more and more expensive.
Of course, patients themselves sometimes deliberately pursue "ineffective medical treatment".
It is definitely the right choice to seek medical attention as soon as possible, but there are many people who ask for various tests for themselves in order to have peace of mind when the doctor makes it clear that there is no major problem.
When choosing drugs, they often pursue imported drugs that are advertised or well-known, but they don't know that most of the prices of these drugs include promotion costs, and their actual efficacy is similar to the "bargain" recommended by doctors.
There are also some special conditions, such as some elderly people with cancer who have undergone surgery at the insistence of their family members, which sometimes does not have a positive effect on prolonging life.
Of course, there are still some people who blindly believe in the so-called "home remedies for serious diseases", and spend a lot of money on drugs and treatments that are not even qualified at all, which is also a kind of excessive medical treatment that is not only ineffective, but even harmful.
In short, in order to ensure our health and rights and interests, we should establish a correct medical concept, and at the same time seek help from regular hospitals in time when we are sick, we can also pay more attention to some knowledge about health, strengthen physical exercise and develop good health habits.
Case Reference Sources:
Jimu News, April 22, 2021