Dr. Rob's 10 Rules for Good Medicine

This superb post from Dr. Rob comes via DB's excellent blog.  Please go read it all.

A taste:

Rule 2: Minimize

Many doctors and patients have a “more is better” mentality. This not only costs more money to the system, but it can cause harm to the patient. Here’s what I think should be done:
1.  Patients should only be seen when a visit is appropriate.
2. Use as few medications as possible, and when necessary, use the cheapest one that will do the job.
3. Order as few tests as possible. No test should be ordered for informational purposes only; the question, “What will I do with these results?” should always be answerable. If it is not, the test should not be done.
4. When changes are made, make only a few at a time. Many simultaneous changes make it hard to tell what helps and what hurts.

If Dr. Rob's rules were followed, we'd waste less money to achieve better outcomes with less hassle and heartache.  Contrast these precepts of of professionalism to modern mandates by medicrats.