Welcome to Plenary Session.

I'm your host, Dr. Vinay Prasad.

I'm a practicing hematologist, oncologist, and I'm associate professor of medicine.

I'm interested in issues at the intersection of medicine, oncology, and health policy, and that's what you're going to get on this podcast.

Welcome to Season 2.

This week on Plenary Session, you're in for a real treat.

I'm joined in the studio by H. Gilbert Welch, and we're going to be talking about all things screening.

In the course of his visit out here in Oregon, Dr. Welsh made the point that the central

theme that united all of his work was that novel ways to expand diagnosis, be it blood tests

that can find disease that you otherwise could not find, imaging that can find abnormalities

where they previously would not be found. These advances in technology do

sometimes bring good. They sometimes make people better off. But what they certainly do

is bring harm. And we forget that this balance is very delicate and must be considered

in all expansions of diagnostic category. And he said that was the central theme that

united his work. And he's here was the central theme that united his work.

And he's here on the podcast to expand upon that theme.

And first, I'm going to talk about two things.

I'm going to talk about one, a little bit of an update about multiple myeloma based on

a reader question.

And two, last week on this podcast I said you need to go after hard targets, not the

soft targets of big

foot and acupuncture and cupping. You need to go after things that actually matter that utilize

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