The CBS pieces examine the overuse of costly and potentially harmful medical procedures. ANGIOPLASTY and SCREENING take aim at two commonly overdone procedures, while INFORMED CONSENT looks at emerging efforts to better inform patients about the risks and benefits of their treatments. ANGIOPLASTY looks at a New Jersey hospital that had recently started doing elective angioplasties despite a saturated market and some bad outcomes. INFORMED CONSENT chronicles the angioplasty of a man who receives the most progressive type of informed consent. SCREENING looks at the problem of runaway diagnostic imaging in the U.S., where millions of unnecessary scans are performed each year, costing billions and often leading to a cascade of subsequent procedures. Our piece aired in Sept. 2009. In December 2009, the Archives of Internal Medicine published a study cautioning against the overuse and dangers of CT scans.
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