Letters
General health checks
Ethical issues related to health checks
BMJ 2014; 349 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g4787 (Published 30 July 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g4787
- Dee Mangin, David Braley Nancy Gordon chair in family medicine1
- 1McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada L8P 0A1
- mangind{at}mcmaster.ca
The paper and editorial on health checks highlight crucial ethical issues.1 2
It is not just the lack of benefit or the harm to patients—who are frightened by their “high risk” and will never think of themselves as healthy again.
It is the waste of resources as governments encourage, and sometimes pay, clinicians to screen healthy patients for cardiovascular risk, …
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