Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Be Ready Ad and Pat Sajak


That's right I saw the Be Ready Ad in between Vanna and Pat. The Sherpa is a "Wheel Watcher" I am always amazed with people. My mother-in-law was sitting with me and she said "Should I get this test?" I said "Wha???" She said, "Will it let me skip mammograms?" I honestly was blown away by this. Especially because she is a nurse. If you are a nurse, you should be health literate.

Unfortunately, she is not genetics literate. I then went to give her my counseling shtick and tell her that no one in her family has breast/ovarian cancer. "So why does that lower my risk?" she asked? This is why Ellen Matloff has her website. I am certain that this testing has identified many people not normally thought to be at risk because of limited family structure i.e. all men relatives (But they still could have prostate, pancreatic, or even breast cancer)

The real question is, what will happen when 23andMe advertise? What about Psynomics?
I am preparing a talk for the Fairfield County Medical Association. What is it about? Well, I would love to have talked about the benefits of genomics. But the pressing topic for community physicians is "Personal Genomics and Liability for the Community Physician"

I had a physician come to the office the other day, she had heard me speak at her hospital's medical staff meeting. She said "The other day when you and your counselor spoke to us, I have to admit, I had no clue what the hell you were talking about" "But now I think I know what you were warning us about." She then handed me a 40 page set of a patient's testing done at Canyon Ranch.

The genetic testing done included such hot buttons as CYP 450 testing billed as "Detoxification Panel" and the loaded APOE testing. It began to finally sink in. These physicians have no clue what is coming. I could spend my days running from hospital to hospital preaching like Cassandra or I could create something just for them.

Anyone interested in helping please send me an email.

I said....."Well, there is certainly alot here." Has anyone seen this Canyon Ranch panel? The interpretation was done by a very nice physician. Clearly not a geneticist, nor an internist. But he told this 30 year old female patient that she needed a Coronary CT Angiogram. This in my humble internal medicine opinion is a little bit of overkill. Despite this testing, no where on the report was a significant family history. Her family history? According to this PMD...it includes longevity. Both parents into the late 90s. My professional opinion, barring trauma or accident, she'll live long enough to pay for all sorts of bogus screening tests.

When looking for this testing on Google, I only found 3 links! Turns out it is Great Smokies/Genovations behind the testing. Canyon Ranch has these pages hidden on their site. I hate to tell everyone, no matter how many poor studies you put behind a test, you still have poor studies and a poor test. It hesitate to point out that not only is Canyon Ranch involved in this testing.....so are some casinos.

Back to my point....Which is....Physicians will only wake up when a patient walks in their door and puts them at liability/malpractice risk. This is especially troublesome when I am trying to point out how they are actually LESS at risk when they appropriately refer to genetics/genomics services and not to Casinos.

The Sherpa Says: Getting these resort testing panels is a lot like playing craps. Put your money on the pass line and roll the dice. You may get something worthwhile, you are more likely NOT to. That's why the house always wins! These tests only stand to confuse and lead you off the trail of truly personalized medicine.

No comments: