Mark Francis Bautista Gamboa

There has been a longtime debate whether it is good or not to subject oneself into a yearly medical check-up especially if no signs of health decline is perceived and felt at all.

In this particular era, growing number of people is against an annual physical check-up for various reasons: economic, old medical practices, and lack of doctors as stated by Alex Janin in his Personal Journal for The Wall Street Journal dated February 22, 2024.  

Although most developing countries have organized health system, still a half of the world lacks access to essential health services. If we see the report of the group STADA, a pharmaceutical company based in Bad Vilbel, Germany, four in every ten Italians do not subject themselves to proper annual check-up or screening due to lack of knowledge of the process and economic limitations. It is alarming that 42% of the total population does not take advantage of the great and well-acclaimed health-care system of Italy.

Aside from lack of knowledge and economically-challenged citizens, old medical practices does not meet the needs of the people. As per practice, the annual physical involves a head-to-toe assessment that often includes listening to a patient’s lungs and heart; recording their weight, height and blood pressure; and checking reflexes and blood tests. However, it has become a trend nowadays that doctors focus more on sleeping habits, the need to exercise and taking care of one’s proper diet: a physical check-up with less poking and prodding.

“There are parts of what we do in a yearly exam that are valuable,” says Dr. Yul Ejnes, a primary-care doctor who sits on the board of the American Board of Internal Medicine. “It’s just that the delivery method that’s been used for decades may not be as effective as we think it is,” adds Dr Yul Ejnes.

This problem can actually be resolved especially nowadays that the health sector may apply and use the available technology in doing their assessments.

Although the use of technology is already a giant leap for man, it could also betray one’s assessment when it comes to one’s health and vitality. This is true for some patients with special and particular cases in which virtual care may never suffice. Dr. Lisa Lehmann, a physician on BellSant’s advisory board of about 20 health experts and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School says that “for an asymptomatic patient, it’s not that they’re never going to see a physician in person, they just might not be prioritized.”

People who supports the traditional approach (in-person visit) say conducting a consistent, by-the-book physical exam with every patient allows doctors to catch issues that the would-be patients might not know at all. Through face-to-face visits, doctors may establish a health baseline and reduces the chance of error in their assessment.

Lack of public health physicians is another hindrance in accessing annual check-up. Although people could pre-book their visits, the number of doctors available per person makes the waiting list take a long time to be scheduled. In the recent study of World Health Organization’s Global Health Workforce Statistics (2021), Italy has 4.13 doctors per 1,000 people which is already considered above average knowing that in the same study, the world average based on 12 countries is 3.93 doctors for every 1,000 people. Still, as abovementioned, 42% of the Italians do not subject themselves to annual check-up.

The debate whether annual check-up is beneficial or not is still ongoing. Patients, and even the doctors themselves, have varying and compelling reasons not to get annual check-up or to just have it normally and treat it as a yearly routine. Nevertheless, through annual check-up, one might just utter the words ‘prevention is better that cure’ right after knowing his present health status.

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 28, 2024