When physicians don’t conduct physical exams, patients are the ones that suffer. According to a recent article in Kaiser Health News, physical exams are giving way to the use of sophisticated, expensive tests in order to diagnose patients.
To address the problem, medical schools such as Stanford, Jefferson, and Johns Hopkins are developing new programs to revive and teach physical diagnosis, according to the article.
Brendan Reilly, MD, former executive vice chair of medicine at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, hopes that the rise in accountable care organizations may boost efforts to revive bedside medicine. “The current system is so ridiculous and inefficient and expensive that we’re going to have to go back to doing some of the old stuff,” Dr. Reilly said in the article, pointing to the need for increased interaction with patients.
