ABSTRACT
The traditional role of the physician is to diagnose, treat, and manage disease processes. Preventive medicine has been largely the domain of public healtsh. But over recent decades subjects have experienced increasingly a need for preventive medicine in their individual lives. So an additional role for the physician emerges: the screening and counseling of subjects who are asymptomatic, who have not (yet) signs or symptoms of disease. The motivation of individuals to seek medical screening may vary: some will have a family history of disease, others like to make a calculated risk before making major decisions in their lives and feel that they have thus more control over their lives. These subjects expect that medical examination will reveal their propensity to develop a particular disease and they are prepared to take early measures to prevent or ameliorate its course. Examples are cardiovascular disease and its risk factors hypertension, lipid disorders, and diabetes mellitus type 2. Others expect that early diagnosis of conditions such as cancer promise a better outcome, or even cure of the disease. Some subjects will feel that information on a health risk profile permits them to plan their life better, enabling them to take important decisions before it is too late. By contrast, there are others who do not wish to have this information since it would now sap the joy of their life. This group will avoid screening opportunities.
