So what about me? Why did I choose to get sedation? Surely I could have toughed-out the pain of the procedure, right? I truthfully think I would have been fine without sedation. However there is one thing that I've learned from being a physician who does procedures for a living: Sometimes there are unintended bad consequences of going against the standard of care.
It is sometimes an awkward conversation to have, but the truth is that at a certain age, we eventually stop checking people for things that may cause them future harm.
Three month follow up after removal of a small colon tumor with colonoscopy. Did the resection work, or did the patient ultimately need surgery?
Here in Long Island, NY where I practice, it seems to be the norm to have a precolonoscopy visit. This visit serves several important purposes in my mind: I can meet the patient, take a history, and make sure they actually need a screening colonoscopy. I can answer all of the above questions in more detail than the primary doctor can. I also get to give them my basic talk about the purpose of a colonoscopy, how and why we remove polyps, the importance of good bowel prep and how to do it, and the small associated risks of a colonoscopy. We can talk about what to do with medications, and where to arrive on the day of the test, and parking, and all those seemingly small details that can make a patient stressed-out about the test for no good reason.
Overtesting and over treatment are big problems in modern medicine. It sometimes goes like this: Have a minor complaint? It's probably nothing, but we should do an exhaustive workup because there is a 0.00001% chance it could be cancer, maybe. However,