The Value of Doing a Blood Test and Medical Check Up at DamaiMedic Kota Kinabalu

Often I get questions from patients asking what are the real differences between different medical check up or blood test packages offered in my clinic compared to other clinics, labs and hospitals offering similar tests.

Well, I am not going to explain the technicalities of the functions of different tests thus its intrinsic value. I will explain that in person during consultation.

Here, I am going to give you some principles about why and how certain medical packages are designed and thus priced.

Medical check ups and blood tests done for healthy people (no symptoms yet) are designed to screen for diseases. We screen for diseases that we think are common and relevant to patients. Screening are seldom done to diagnosed rare diseases. If they do they would probably be very expensive. Imagine there are thousands of laboratory tests checking for thousands of medical conditions. It is impractical to do everything which is likened to searching for a needle in a hay-sack.

Unfortunately we as clinicians are seeing many medical labs providing direct excess to patients by just 'walk in' and asking for a medical blood tests to be done without seeing a doctor first. Is there anything wrong with that? Well, not actually until the patient starts asking questions like:

• DO I HAVE DENGUE IF MY PLATELETS ARE LOW?
• DO I REALLY HAVE CANCER IF MY CANCER MARKER IS HIGH?
• DO I NEED TO START MEDICATION IF MY CHOLESTEROL IS ABOVE THE NORMAL RANGE?
• IS MY TIREDNESS CAUSED BY MY ABNORMAL LIVER FUNCTION TEST?
• CAN I CONTINUE TAKING THIS MEDICINE IF MY KIDNEY FUNCTION TEST IS ABNORMAL?
• WHAT SHOULD I DO IF MY HEPATITIS B SCREENING SHOWS THAT I HAVE POSITIVE ANTIBODIES AGAINST HEPATITIS B?

These questions, putting it plainly sounds like this,"So what does it mean, and what should I do next?"

These questions could not and SHOULD NOT be answered by a pharmacist, a laboratory technologist, a sales consultant or anybody who did perform a physical medical examination on that patient. Who else is competent, qualified and has the authority to examine a patient except a medical doctor? PhD doctors are not the same as a licensed medical doctor so please don't be confused.

I should say that an "unhealthy" trend is becoming rampant in our country lately whereby patients themselves order blood tests from a private medical laboratory and bring the report to the doctor for interpretation. I wonder why the patient did not go to a doctor first to check what is wrong with him/her and then decide what blood tests to order.

Let me illustrate with an analogy to help you understand better. Imagine you are trying to catch a thief who got wet from the rain and ran into a hotel with 100 rooms and the thief hid in one of those rooms. How would you catch this thief? Are you going to open and search every single room? No, of course! You would try to get clues from the foot prints the wet thief left behind and trace it to the specific room the thief is in. That way you will catch the thief by opening just one door! Well the foot prints leading to the door are comparable to a good history taking and physical examination by the doctor. Only then can the doctor be able to order the appropriate tests and come to a diagnosis with all the information obtained.

A good doctor can help you save by not wasting money doing unnecessary tests. He would know which area of the body to focus on to identify the problem. That makes a big difference in the pricing of the medical check up packages offered.

The quality and value of the medical check up does not depend on how expensive the health screening package is and not how many tests done (as if the more the better). Rather, it is how focused the tests are directed in helping the doctor arrive at a correct diagnosis. 

Medical blood test results need to be interpreted accordingly. Another analogy would be like the metal detector at the airport. If you trigger the alarm of the walk-through metal detector at the airport, it doesn't mean that you carrying an explosive. The officer will frisk you to further investigate. If it turns out that it was your metal belt buckle which triggered the alarm, the security officer will let you go without any further question. Similarly, screening blood test should not be taken as the absolute conclusive evidence of disease, nor should medical decisions be made solely on the blood results. I cannot overemphasize the importance of a good history taking and physical examination in any health screening. Many incidental findings of medical problems are picked up this way. 

Schedule an appointment for a standard medical check up today. Rest assured you will be seen by a doctor for both physical check up and interpretation of lab results. 

The blood test packages we offer are as follows: