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VIDEO: Improving the comfort, value of women’s wellness exams

SAN DIEGO – Eliminating unreliable screening tools that have traditionally been a part of women’s gynecological can improve the benefit of the exam and allow the clinician to focus on other areas of the patient’s overall health, according to a presenter at the ACP Internal Medicine Annual Meeting.

One area that has changed is the breast exam.

“The screening test that works is the mammogram, and unfortunately efforts at breast self-exam and clinical exam often parlay up into unnecessary expense without improved outcomes,” Christine Robillard Isaacs, MD, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center, said in an interview with Healio Internal Medicine.

Isaacs also addressed changes in approach to pelvic examination and cervical cancer screening.