Dr. Mercer Rang, an orthopedic surgeon at the Hospital for Sick
Children has coined the expression "Ulysses Syndrome".  This results
from someone doing a test (in the example he gives an SGOT, now called
AST, a liver enzyme test, by the way) for no good reason that comes up
abnormal.  There then follows a long, circuitous path to track down
the cause which, naturally leads right back to where you started.
After a lot of pain and blood, and a lot of cost and time, nobody is
any the wiser and no diagnosis is made.

Here's a question for you.  How many tests do you need to have done to
have a 50% chance of having one of the tests come back abnormal, even
if you are completely healthy?  You can figure it out if you want, but
I think the answer is thirteen.

When I was an emergency pediatrician, I used to tell the students and
residents to treat the patient not the laboratory.  As you can see
from what goes on, obviously nobody paid attention to me.

Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC