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| Dentistry
By Dr. Mercola: If your
physician tells you that you need surgery, unless it is an emergency, I
would strongly recommend to get a second opinion first.
In many cases, you may find that you
don’t need surgery after all, saving not only a considerable amount of
money but also avoiding the potentially deadly risks that any surgery
carries.
In fact, according to a new
USA Today review of government records and medical databases, tens
of thousands of patients undergo unnecessary surgery each and every
year!1
And according to some experts, that number may actually be in the
millions. According to USA Today:
“'It's a very serious issue,
(and) there really hasn't been a movement to address it,' says
Lucian Leape, a former surgeon and professor at the Harvard School
of Public Health. Leape, a renowned patient safety expert...
He began studying unnecessary
surgery after a 1974 congressional report estimated that there were
2.4 million cases a year, killing nearly 12,000 patients. Leape's
take today? "Things haven't changed very much.'”
Many Doctors ‘Lack the Competence’ to Know
When a Surgery Isn’t Necessary
There are multiple reasons why
unnecessary surgeries take place. In some cases they’re the result of
criminal acts, in which surgeons intentionally prey on patients,
performing surgeries even though they know they are not medically
justified.
USA Today cited the case of
Michael Rosin, a dermatologist who was sentenced to 22 years in prison
and fines of more than $7 million for intentionally misdiagnosing his
patients with skin cancer so he could perform surgeries to remove benign
lesions.
Far more often, however, are the
physicians who perform unnecessary surgeries out of incompetence or a
lack of training in less-invasive alternatives. Many health care
providers may believe that surgery is the only answer, even when the
success rates are minimal and better non-surgical treatment options
exist.
Then there are those providers who
perform the surgery simply because the profit will increase their
income, and they can justify them as medically ‘necessary.’ USA
Today reported:2
“'I think there are a very small
percent of doctors who are crooked, maybe 1 or 2%,' says John Santa,
a physician and former health system administrator who became
director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center in 2008.
'I think there's a higher
percentage who are not well trained or not competent' to determine
when surgery is necessary, Santa says. 'Then you have a big group
who are more businessmen than medical professionals — doctors who
look at those gray cases and say, 'Well, I have enough here to
justify surgery, so I'm going to do it.''”
Personally, I think USA Today
is being very kind in their low-ball estimate of 1-2%. Those numbers
seem quite low and from my experience I suspect it is significantly
higher.
Six Common Surgeries That Are Often
Unnecessary
It’s worth getting a second
opinion before you have virtually any non-emergency surgery.
However, if you’re scheduled for one of the following procedures, it
becomes even more imperative to seek another expert’s opinion, as these
surgeries carry a high risk of being done without medical
necessity.3
Yes I realize there is a cost and
significant hassle factor, but I strongly encourage to do your due
diligence. The extra time and resources you invest in confirming the
necessity of the surgery could have a major impact on your ability to
enjoy the rest of your life.
1. Cardiac Angioplasty, Stents
This invasive procedure involves
inflating a thin balloon in a narrowed artery to crush plaque
deposits; a stent (a wire mesh tube) is often then left behind to
keep the vessel open. When used during a heart attack, an
angioplasty can quickly open a blocked artery to lessen the damage
to your heart, and when used in this way can be lifesaving.
However, oftentimes heart
disease patients receive angioplasties even though they have not had
a heart attack -- a decision that goes against the latest
medical guidelines. One 2011 study found that 12 percent of all
angioplasty procedures (in cases that did not involve an acute heart
attack) were not medically necessary.4
Separate research also revealed that angioplasty offers no benefit
compared to less invasive treatment of heart disease.5
2. Cardiac Pacemakers
Pacemakers are used to correct
heartbeat irregularities, but research shows that more than 22
percent of these implants may be unnecessary.6
3. Spinal Fusion Back Surgery
If you have low back pain and see
different specialists you will get different tests: rheumatologists
will order blood tests, neurologists will order nerve impulse tests,
and surgeons will order MRIs and CT scans. But no matter what tests
you get, you'll probably end up with a
spinal fusion because it's one of the "more lucrative procedures
in medicine," author Shannon Brownlee says – even though the best
success rate for spinal fusions is only 25 percent!
According to one review, more
than 17 percent of patients told they needed spinal surgery actually
showed no abnormal neurological or radiographic findings that would
require surgery.7
4. Hysterectomy
The surgical removal of the
uterus may be recommended inappropriately in 70 percent of
cases, often because of a lack of adequate diagnostic evaluation and
failure to try alternative treatments before the surgery.8
Some surgeons also remove healthy ovaries during hysterectomy as a
‘precaution,’ sometimes without the patient providing their consent
or being informed as to the severe adverse effects the ovariectomy
may produce on their remaining quality of life.
5. Knee and Hip Replacement, and
Arthroscopic Knee Surgery
Patients who were informed
about joint replacements and alternative treatments had 26 percent
fewer hip replacements and 38 percent fewer knee replacements than
those who did not.9
Arthroscopic knee surgery for osteoarthritis is also one of the most
unnecessary surgeries performed today, as it works no better than a
placebo surgery.
Proof of this is a
double-blind placebo-controlled multi-center (including Harvard’s
Mass General Hospital) study published in one of the most
well-respected medical journals on the planet, the New England
Journal of Medicine (NEJM) over 10 years ago.10
Recent research has also shown
arthroscopic knee surgery works no better than placebo surgery, and
when comparing treatments for knee pain, physical therapy was found
to be just as effective as surgery, but at significantly reduced
cost and risk.11
And yet another study showed exercise is just as effective as
surgery for people with chronic pain in the front part of their
knee, known as chronic patellofemoral syndrome (PFPS), which is also
frequently treated unnecessarily with arthroscopic surgery.12
6. Cesarean Section
Cesarean delivery is the most
commonly performed surgical procedure in the US and rates are
increasing. But research shows rates vary 10-fold among hospitals,
even among low-risk pregnancies,13
suggesting that practice patterns, not necessity, are driving these
high surgery rates.
According to the World Health
Organization, no country is justified in having a cesarean rate
greater than 10 percent to 15 percent. The US rate, at nearly 32
percent, is the highest rate ever reported in the US and is higher
than in most other developed countries.
Diagnostic Errors Permanently Injure or
Kill Up to 160,000 Americans a Year
Unnecessary surgeries are only
one problem facing the conventional medical system. Medical errors
are also alarmingly common, and diagnosis errors, in particular, appear
to be occurring at very high rates. Researchers recently wrote in
BMJ Quality & Safety:14
“Among malpractice claims,
diagnostic errors appear to be the most common, most costly and most
dangerous of medical mistakes. We found roughly equal numbers of
lethal and non-lethal errors in our analysis, suggesting that the
public health burden of diagnostic errors could be twice that
previously estimated.”
The study involved more than
350,000 malpractice claims, of which nearly 29 percent involved a
missed, wrong or delayed diagnosis. Such errors may account for the
permanent injury or death of up to 160,000 patients each year, the study
found, with researchers noting that “it is probably a lot higher than
that.”15
Case in point, when all medical errors, not just diagnosis errors, are
taken into account, the rate of medical harm occurring in the US is
estimated to be over 40,000 harmful and/or lethal errors each
and EVERY day.16
Hospitals Profit Off of Surgical Errors and
Medical Mishaps
Part of the problem is that hospitals
and providers have little incentive to change, as the more surgeries
performed, the more money they make. And if complications are involved,
so much the better from a financial perspective.
One revealing JAMA study
found that major surgical complications actually earn hospitals more
money on privately insured or Medicare-covered patients.17
This isn’t exactly shocking, of course, since the more complications
suffered, the longer the hospital stay and the more associated
medications, tests and procedures that will be ordered. Hospitals are a
business, after all, and the more “services” used by any one patient,
the more money they make.
Where money is concerned, a
hospital therefore has no incentive to reduce surgical errors
and other medical mishaps, which may actually be a key moneymaker for
them. And, as the Health Business Blog astutely reported,18
unlike most businesses, which suffer financially when mistakes occur,
hospitals get to charge you even more money to treat you for avoidable
complications or mistakes they make. Decreasing surgical complications
may therefore have adverse financial consequences for many hospitals,
the researchers concluded, and the same goes for reducing unnecessary
surgery rates, as well.
It’s Your Body: Take Control of Your Health
My primary suggestion is to avoid
hospitals and surgeries unless it's an absolute emergency and you need
life-saving medical attention. If you're going to have an elective
medical procedure, always get a second opinion—and possibly a
third and fourth.
The other KEY is to be proactive and
start pursuing a healthy lifestyle today so you don't become a victim of
an unnecessary medical procedure. I have compiled my best tips in a
customized 100-page
nutrition plan to help you take control of your health. It is
customized to three different levels and you can start at any level, but
be sure and read from the beginning, as reviewing the basics is the best
way to reinforce healthy patterns.
As much as possible, be proactive in
using a
healthy lifestyle to support and protect your health and, if illness
does occur, use natural methods that will allow your body to heal itself
without the need for unnecessary surgery, drugs or other invasive
medical procedures.
