NPR

Why Do Doctors Overtreat? For Many, It's What They're Trained To Do

Ordering more tests or treatments is not always best for patients' health or wallet. A group of medical educators is trying to address the problem where they think it starts: medical training.
The habit of ordering unneeded tests and treatments drives up medical costs. It's a pattern doctors often learn in medical school and residency.

When family physician Jenna Fox signed on for a yearlong advanced obstetrics fellowship after her residency to learn to deliver babies, she knew she'd need to practice as many cesarean sections as possible.

The problem was, she also knew C-sections aren't always good for patients. Many women's health experts argue they're often unnecessary and increase health risks for mom and baby. Doctors are working to decrease high C-section rates in hospitals around the country. Fox and her colleagues on the labor and delivery floor at the University of Rochester try hard to prevent them, particularly primary C-sections, when a woman needs one for her first baby.

"I want to avoid primary C-sections. But also in this one year of my life I want all the primary C-sections

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