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Article: The not-so-routine physical. (examination)
- Article from:
- FDA Consumer
- Article date:
- July 1, 1992
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1992 U.S. Government Printing Office. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The annual medical checl once a cornerstone of American health care, is fading into medical history. Like Mercurochrome and the iron lung, the routine annual physical for people who aren't sick came and went in less than a century--replaced by an approach to periodic health screening based on a new awareness of the importance of risk analysis and targeted preventive services.
That may sound like impersonal, hightech medicine, but it isn't. Today's far-from-routine health checkup is grounded on a highly personalized concept: the idea that every individual is unique, that each of us has a medical history and lifestyle that 'strongly influence how healthy--or ...