WASHINGTON (AP) ? Don't be afraid to question your doctor and ask, "Do I really need that?"
That's the advice from leading medical groups who came up dozens of tests and treatments that physicians too often prescribe when they shouldn't.
No worrisome stroke signs? Then don't screen a healthy person for a clogged neck artery, the family physicians say. It could lead to risky surgery for a blockage too small to matter.
Don't routinely try heartburn medicine for infants with reflux, the pediatric hospitalists say. It hasn't been proven to work in babies, and could cause side effects.
Don't try feeding tubes in people with advanced dementia, say the hospice providers. Helping them eat is a better option.
These are examples of potentially needless care that not only can waste money and time, but sometimes can harm, says the warning being issued Thursday from medical specialty groups that represent more than 350,000 doctors.
Too many people "think that more is better, that more treatment, more testing somehow results in better health care," said Dr. Glen Stream, former president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, which contributed to the list. "That really is not true."
The recommendations are part of a coalition called Choosing Wisely, formed by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation. Participating medical societies were asked to identify five tests or treatments that are commonly overused in their specialty. The list is aimed at doctors and includes references to published studies. Consumers Reports and other consumer groups are publicizing the information in more patient-friendly terms.
Last year, the coalition listed 45 overused tests and treatments. It included some of the best known examples, such as too much imaging for back pain and repeating colonoscopies too frequently.
This year's list adds 90 more overused kinds of care. Some are the result of doctors' habits, hard to overcome despite new evidence, Stream said. Others come about because patients demand care they think they need.
Some other examples:
?Don't use opioid painkillers for migraines except as a last resort, say the neurologists. There are better, more migraine-specific drugs available without the addictive risk of narcotics. Plus, frequent use of opioids actually can worsen migraines, a concept known as rebound headache.
?Just because a pregnant woman misses her due date, don't race to induce labor if mom and baby are doing fine, say the obstetricians. Inducing before the cervix is ready often fails, leading to an unneeded C-section. "Just being due by the calendar doesn't mean your body says you're due," Stream notes.
?Don't automatically give a child a CT scan after a minor head injury, say the pediatricians. About half of children who go to the ER with head injuries get this radiation-heavy scan, and clinical observation first could help some who don't really need a CT avoid it.
?And don't leave an implanted heart-zapping defibrillator turned on when a patient is near death, say the hospice providers. This technology clearly saves lives by guarding against an irregular heartbeat. But if someone is dying of something else, or is in the terminal stages of heart disease, it can issue repeated painful shocks, to no avail. Yet fewer than 10 percent of hospices have formal policies on when to switch off the implants.
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From Your Health Journal?..?A great local story from an ABC affiliate (wear-tv) about preventing childhood obesity. Sometimes, all the great things that go on at the national level are quite ineffective, but when organized at the local level, fighting childhood obesity can be quite effective. I have always found that planting the seed (fighting obesity) at the national level helps the flower grow (fighting obesity) at the local level. We know that childhood obesity is on the rise. The American Heart Association has reported that 25 million children in the US are overweight, which is one in three kids (one in seven are obese). The CDC has stated that the prevalence of childhood obesity has doubled in the last 20 years for children ages 5-11, and nearly tripled for teens ages 12-18. So, local pediatricians are stepping up to the plate and educating communities about healthy lifestyle. School menus are starting to get healthier, and the push for physical activity is growing. Please visit the ABC web site (link provided below) to read the complete article, as well as watching the newscast on the topic.? 
Being connected or on call doesn't mean your friends and family have to suffer along with you. The key is to draw bright lines between your "on" and "off" times, and manage your coworkers expectations for when you're supposed to be available. Here's how to turn that struggle for balance into an easily managed routine. 
If being on call drives you crazy with buzzing phones and late-night conference calls, you probably want to do something about it. That's the good news. The bad news is that while we can offer tips to help you out, it's not going to be easy. Part of the problem may be the habits and expectations you've set leading up to this point, which can be difficult to break. It'll require willpower to stand behind your convictions, and not to let up and go back to your old routine. Photo by B Calkins (Shutterstock).
"On call" should not be the same as "working." This is true for most companies, but if you get the feeling that in your job, being "on call" is the same as being "up all night waiting for something to happen so you may as well be working," you may need to have a chat with your manager. The point of "on call" work is, in most organizations, that there's someone available to jump in and work on an important issue after business hours?not that there's someone working around the clock that day. Similarly, make sure you're being paid appropriately for your on call and after-hours work. If you start racking up too many on call or overtime hours, odds are someone will sit up and take notice. Photo by imageegami (Shutterstock).
Fiercely defend your personal time. When you're not on call, there should be no real expectation that you'll be available unless it suits you or there's a real emergency. Most jobs, especially in technology or engineering, have some assumption that if your skills are required and it's an emergency that you should be reachable somehow within reason, but "within reason" doesn't mean "all the time." Defend your personal time by avoiding your work email when you're not on call, routing coworkers to voicemail when you need privacy, and turning off work-related alerts and notifications when you're off. Depending on your willpower, you may be able to do some of these things and not others, like leaving automatic alerts on but ignoring emails, so do what's right for you. Remember though, it's not a huge leap from "I'll just check my email before bed so I don't have so much in the morning" to "everyone at work knows I stay up until 2am working and happily exploit it." Photo by Dave Clark Digital Photo (Shutterstock).
Make heavy use of your phone's do-not-disturb features. If you have an iPhone running iOS 6 or higher, you already have the tools for this. If you have an Android phone, you can set auto-responses or SMSes as a reply to unwanted phone calls, and apps like previously mentioned Silence can use your Google Calendar to determine when to turn your ringer on and when to turn it off, or you can set it yourself. Want more control? We like Sanity, an app that lets you control who rings through, even when your phone is on vibrate or silent mode.
Make heavy use of vibrate settings, or buy a gadget that does. Being on call doesn't mean you have to wake up your family members when something at the office goes south, or heaven forbid deprive your spouse or children of sleep because you need to be able to wake if something happens. Sure, you could strap your phone to your arm and set it to vibrate, but there's no reason to go that far. There's a cottage industry of vibrating bracelets that go off silently when your phone rings. They're perfect for getting calls and getting up in the middle of the night without waking anyone else. If you're not eager to spend $50-100 for one, we're sure you can DIY your own system with a Bluetooth headset or even a pair of Bluetooth headphones to wake you (and only you) when you're needed. Similarly, if you just need to get up early to start an on call shift, or want to get up periodically to make sure everything is okay, use an alarm clock like the previously mentioned LARK silent alarm to wake you without stirring your partner. If you have a fitness tracking gadget that also tracks sleep, like the Fitbit or any of these devices we've tested, they can almost all wake you gently at the right time without waking up your whole house in the process. Photo by Digitpedia.
