Screenings

I take care to guide patients on what screenings are appropriate for them.

Doctors use the Wilson Criteria to help patients decide whether screening is the right choice:

• The condition being screened for should be an important health problem
• The natural history of the condition should be understood. 
• There should also a recognisable early symptomatic stage .
• The screening test should be easy to perform and interpret. 
• The test should also be acceptable to patients and accurate, reliable, sensitive and specific. 

Once all these criteria have been satisfied, there should also be an accepted treatment recognised for the disease and treatment should be more effective if started early. There should also be policy on who should be treated. The diagnosis and treatment should also be cost effective and case-finding should be a continuous process.