ABSTRACT:The phenomenon of medical overtesting in general, and specifically in the emergency room, is well known and regarded as harmful to both the patient and the healthcare system. Although the implications of this problem raise myriad ethical concerns, this paper explores the extent to which overtesting might mitigate race-based health inequalities. Given that medical malpractice and error greatly increase when the patients belong to a racial minority, it is no surprise that the mortality rate similarly increases in proportion to white patients. For these populations, an environment that emphasizes medical overtesting may well be the desirable medical environment until care evens out among races and ethnicities; additionally, efforts to lower overtesting in conjunction with a high rate of racist medical mythology may cause harm by lowering testing when it is actually warranted. Furthermore, medical overtesting may help to assuage racial distrust. This paper ultimately concludes that an environment of medical overtesting may be less pernicious than the alternative.

中文翻译：

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医疗过度测试和种族不信任。

摘要：通常，特别是在急诊室，医疗过度测试现象是众所周知的，并且被认为对患者和医疗系统均有害。尽管此问题的含义引起了无数的伦理关注，但本文还是探讨了过度测试可以减轻基于种族的健康不平等的程度。鉴于当患者属于种族少数群体时医疗事故和错误会大大增加，因此死亡率与白人患者的比例类似地增加也就不足为奇了。对于这些人群来说，强调医学过度测试的环境很可能是理想的医学环境，直到种族和族裔之间的照顾变得平衡为止。另外，降低过度测试率以及种族主义医学神话率很高的努力，可能会在实际需要的时候通过降低测试率来造成伤害。此外，体检过度可能有助于减轻种族不信任。本文最终得出结论，医学过度测试的环境可能没有其他选择那么有害。