Can Hippocrates prevent overdiagnosis?

Can Hippocrates prevent overdiagnosis?: Jack O’Sullivan fills us in on highlights and buzz from this year’s Preventing Overdiagnosis conference in Barcelona.  Hippocrates’ infamous oath echoed around Barcelona’s International Convention Centre throughout the fourth Preventing Overdiagnosis conference, held this past week. For three days, this eclectic and passionate mix of policy makers, clinicians, academics and patients discussed modern medicine’s divagation from its binding principle: primum non nocere (first do no harm). Dr. Catherine Calderwood, the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland, best encapsulated the spirit of the conference. Dr. Calderwood’s keynote presentation highlighted the fundamental goal of all health care: person-centred care. Building on her Realistic Medicine report, Dr. Calderwood argued that effective, appropriate care is one that gives person preference (she prefers this term over patient preference) paramount importance. “I wanted to stand on my doorstep and talk to my neighbor,” she recalls from an