Will more screening tests improve your health? 'Soup & Sandwich Series' talk Aug. 15 in Londonderry

Dr. H. Gilbert Welch of Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Massachusetts will present a talk titled “Will More Screening Tests Really Make You More Healthy?” from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 15 at Neighborhood Connections, 5700 Route 100 in the Mountain Marketplace in Londonderry.

This is part of its “Soup and Sandwich Series,” and a light lunch will be available.

Welch believes that medicine has overinvested in screening — particularly, cancer screening — to the detriment of human health. He will explore why he believes screening does not work that well and has little effect, if any, on one’s longevity, yet produces real harms: false alarms, more cycles of testing and overdiagnosis. Much of his work has focused on overdiagnoses in cancer screening, especially melanoma, thyroid, lung, breast and prostate cancer.

His arguments are frequently counterintuitive, even heretical, yet have regularly appeared in the country’s most prestigious medical journals, as well as in op-eds in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. His most recent book is Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions That Drive Too Much Medical Care.

Welch is a general internist who has worked for the U.S. Indian Health Service, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Dartmouth Medical School. For questions, more information or to reserve a seat, contact Suzanne Burge at 802-824-4343.