Two scandalous news stories about Swedish medical care -- both from taking the cheapest way out -- by not doing routine brain scans.  Story 1, today: Doctors miss fist-sized brain tumour."A Swedish woman has reported four physicians to a national body that assesses medical negligence after they missed a brain tumour the size of a fist." The docs told this poor woman that it was just her usual headaches, and gave her pain pills. Story 2. Doctors missed pencil in Swedish boy's brainPublished: 17 Dec 08 12:38 CE "Two doctors from Karlskrona in southern Sweden have been reprimanded for failing to spot the five centimetre piece chunk of a pencil lodged in the brain of a 14-year-old boy."Now doctors do make mistakes. But you can't miss a fist-sized brain tumor or a three-inch pencil in somebody's brain if you do routine brain scans. The US has a lot more CAT scan machines and MRIs than Europe because we use them a lot more. In these cases a plain X-ray would have...(Read Full Post)