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Event
Profs & Pints: What Medical Tests Dont Show
Profs and Pints presents: What Medical Tests Dont Show, a look probability, uncertainty, and the correct interpretation of medical tests, with Dan Morgan, professor of epidemiology and public health and medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and chief of the Veterans Affairs Maryland Healthcare System.
The last 40 years have witnessed both a dramatic increase in the ease of administering medical tests and a surge in the number of such tests available, with more than 13 billion performed every year. Due heavily to pharmaceutical advertising aimed directly at patients, more patients are ordering tests on themselves without any scientific training on how to properly order test or interpret test results.
Its a dangerous trend. Even doctors working with modern laboratories, where such testing is much more reliable, sometimes wrongly interpret test results in ways that seriously affect patients. People at home, who are unlikely to fully understand how considerations of probability factor into medical test interpretations, are especially prone to giving test results far too much weight. Especially troublesome are results that are false positives, creating the temptation for people to falsely conclude that they have a condition or disease and experience unnecessary anxiety or seek unnecessary treatments. Both clinical research and evidence-based medicine have demonstrated a blindness to false positive results and shown how patients can be harmed from treating diseases that arent there.
Join Dan Morgan, a physician epidemiologist, for a talk that will give you a much deeper understanding of medical testing, equipping you to better look after your health in the long term. Hell look at how testing became a part of medical testing, show how such tests are connected to larger trends in modern medicine, and offer a brief crash course on the science underlying medical-test interpretation.
Dr. Morgan will discuss how uncritical faith in technology and physiology, without regard to considerations of probability, often leads to harms. Hell look at major mishaps in the fieldsuch as the collapse of the company Theranos, infamous for falsely claiming it had developed a one-drop blood testand the ways in which even doctors with great reputations sometimes get this stuff wrong. And hell touch on some promising new developments, such as the computer-aided creation of visual aids that help explain probabilities to physicians and patients, that will enable all involved to better understand what medical tests mean.
Youll walk out of the room better equipped to look after your health in the long run. Not a bad return for less money than you might spend on a co-pay and less time than you might spend in a waiting room. (Advance tickets $12. Door: $15 (cash only), save $2 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later. Please allow yourself plenty of time to place orders and be seated or settled.)
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LocationSocial Circle Bistro at the Cambria Hotel-Washington DC Convention Center (View)
899 O Street NW
Washington, DC 20001
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 18 |
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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