Yearly Checkups

The surprising thing about the annual checkup is that most medical experts now agree it's a waste of time. Many health organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians and the U.S. Public Health Service, no longer recommend such examinations, and more than 20 years of studies have found no evidence that they provide a long-term benefit if you're a healthy adult, even one over 50. "The problem with the old way of doing the annual checkup is that it's one size fits all," says Dr. Russell Harris, director of the program on prevention at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. "It needs to be scaled back to ask, What is it that you, specifically, are at risk for?"

Annual blood tests? Urinalysis? Don't bother. Federal guidelines for healthy people now dismiss urine tests as unnecessary and say the only blood test worth bleeding for is an occasional cholesterol check.

What should you do? The best way to lower your risk is to talk to your doctor regularly. If you're over 50, have your blood pressure and cholesterol checked every year. You should also get a flu shot and speak with your doctor about a screening for colorectal cancer. If you're a woman 50 or older, you should be tested periodically for cervical and breast cancer. In general, the lower your risk factors for a disease, the less frequently you ought to be tested.

Still, who among us wouldn't feel shortchanged if we arrived for a checkup and were never even asked to unbutton our shirts? Dr. Christine Laine, a Philadelphia internist and senior deputy editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine, understands that the odds of discovering a serious problem by listening to a healthy patient's heart and lungs during a checkup are slim, but she listens anyway. Laine says the ritualistic wielding of the stethoscope on bare skin fosters an emotional bond between patients and the person they're relying on for their medical well-being. "And anyway," she says, "it takes less time for me to do it than to convince them there's no need for me to."