Many patients are willing to go through with a surgery for the relief of anxiety over the medical issue they are facing. In his article “Overkill,” Gawande tells the story of a patient named Mrs. E who had an extremely small carcinoma on her thyroid that would not have been an issue if it hadn’t been found. For Mrs. E, the relief she obtained was worth the serious health risks of her surgery.Even though she had a “turtle”, she took her chances and went through with the surgery. From a financial standpoint, the surgery is viewed as wasteful and unnecessary. From a medical standpoint, it seems like an overreaction to a small and unthreatening problem. But from the patients standpoint, the surgery was worth the money and risks associated with it. Gawande even points out that after the surgery, Mrs. E came back and “thanked me profusely for relieving her anxiety.” On the other side of the coin, over-treatment can bring about more anxiety than there was to begin with. In the case of Bruce, a colleague of Gawande’s who experienced the negative repercussions of over treatment. When Bruce’s 82-year old father began having fainting episodes his doctors told him he had severe atherosclerotic blockages and recommended doing a three-vessel cardiac-bypass operation as soon as possible, followed, a week or two later, by surgery to open up one of his carotid arteries. However, this surgery posed serious risk factors, including stroke. Leaving the decision to his son, it was not until after that Bruce realized the mistake of agreeing to the surgery. The surgery was not meant to relieve the fainting episodes because the blockages weren’t the cause of these episodes. Bruce’s father had a stroke during the surgery, losing his ability to talk coherently, and was moved into a nursing home, where he died 9 months later. For the patient, or in this case the patients family, things would have been better without the surgery ever taking place. Bruce not only had to deal with the worry and anxiety caused by effects of this unnecessary surgery, but also the regret of agreeing to the surgery that ultimately accelerated his fathers death. In Mrs. E’s case, the benefit of expelling her anxiety did outweigh the risks associated with her surgery. For Bruce, the opposite was true. So the truth is, although over-treatment is wasteful and unnecessary, in some cases it can can relieve anxiety and worry for the patient and in others it can bring about more.
Sociology of Healthcare 