EmpowHer.com also creates what we like to call advocacy sheets that women can take into their doctors to help guide them through their visits and encourage them to think independently. Here's one we've created for Heart Awareness Month.

http://empowher.com/conditions/advocacyl...

In addition to tests, the sheets provide questions related to medications and symptoms. Just another tool -- like the Vital 10 questions -- to get people to take their health into their own hands.

Check out the rigorous testing one patient had to endure. The motivation for these tests, the article says is “defensive” medicine by doctors trying to avoid lawsuits; patients’ demands; a pervading belief among doctors and patients that newer, more expensive technology is better.

The most important factor, however, may be the perverse financial incentives of our current system. Ugh.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/11/health...

I think you hit two nails on their respective heads: lawsuits and financial incentives. A doctor we knew in Dallas admitted to us that the cost of malpractice insurance was forcing him to close his small clinic. That's pretty sad. Other doctors we have known seemed to focus more on accounting than on patient care. That's pretty bad.