Physician's Ordeal Leads to a Realization

For years I've heard friends describe experiences of being caught in a web of excessive and unnecessary medical testing. Their doctors ordered test Z to investigate a seemingly incidental finding on test Y, which had come about because of a borderline abnormality on test X. I often wondered why test X was done in the first place. As a primary care physician, I would have treated them for the likely diagnosis and done diagnostic tests -- especially a series of diagnostic tests -- only if they didn't respond as expected. Washington Post