Why GPs should lead in disease definitions
Family doctors, and not other specialists, are 'uniquely placed' to lead teams to define disease: BMJ
10th April 2019
GPs rather than other specialists should be heading up the panels that define diseases, in order to tackle the growing problem of overdiagnosis, researchers say.
The expansion of disease definitions means more people are labelled 'unwell', leading to overdiagnosis and overtreatment, according to a group of evidence-based researchers in BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.
Often the specialist guideline panels that expand definitions have close ties to industry and fail to take into account the harms of defining more people as