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Hi Diane - There's an old saying about when life hands you lemons you should turn it into lemonade. We need to stop and take a longer look at the net impact of the multiple and confusing statements about women's health screenings. I think the long term impact will be a lot more positive than it seems right now.

While healthcare professionals have discussed and debated these types of guidelines for years, the general public has typically not been part of the dialogue. I'm sure many women have learned more in the last couple of weeks about the pros and cons of screenings than ever before, and that more dialogues than ever are occurring between women and their physicians about personal needs and personal guidelines. That's healthy, and something that's been needed for a long, long time.

The organizations that announced these guidelines seem to have come from the "old" days when health "rules" were made, and women were just expected to follow them without question. The public uproar has been a good way of letting those in the bubble of the professional healthcare environment know that the patient has become a healthcare consumer, with full access to the Internet and incredible information, as well as someone who will no longer just blindly accept "rules" simply because some group of experts came up with them.
I don't like the lemons that were thrown at us last week and the way we had to keep them from hitting us. I do look forward to the future when this settles and we have our various flavors of individual lemonade to chose from for the sake of our own best health.
Thanks for writing about this,
Pat

November 23, 2009 - 5:41pm

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