Fear of litigation is causing melanoma to be overdiagnosed

Another casualty of defensive medicine:

The study’s lead researcher believes a fear of malpractice lawsuits causes many doctors to become overcautious and over-diagnose skin cancer.

“We live in a very litigious society with a lot of defensive medicine,” said Dr. Ali Hendi, an assistant professor of dermatology at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fl. “If a pathologist is looking under microscope [with these new guidelines], he is not going to feel that urge to overcall it,” he reasoned.

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