As medical lab tests become cheaper and more easily accessible to a click of a mouse or tick of a pen, we forget the " tar baby" effect. A test that might appear " safe" and make you feel " complete" when you see a patient, might have drastic consequences when it leads to anxiety and frustration and can have a mountainous effect leading to other tests.
As our urges tell us to order these tests, we have to control and look at the clinical picture and decide - is it necessary? Its also hard to argue these points in the current era of malpractice and law suits and the need for the physician to have done a "complete workup". Its a sad state of affairs but this "tar baby" effect is not going away anytime soon.
And this applies to Nephrology as well!
Take a look at this fascinating article shared to me by a friend
Ref:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3578335
dat's us, actin' like dat ol' Brer Rabbit, gettin' stuck, arm, leg n' head.
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