When doctors uses deception and tricks to convince you to think that all the tests, drugs, and procedures they sell to you are "necessary and lifesaving," it's also crucial that they sell you on a fiction even more crucial to their role as unwitting pimps for the drug and device companies.  They have to convince you that their snake-oil remedies are safe!  Of course, they have tricks up their sleeve to do that,  but studies show that most doctors don't need tricks, since 90% of doctors don't even know the dangers of the drugs they're prescribing or the tests and procedures they are being paid handsomely to push on you.  Doctors get the majority of their knowledge from the media, from specialty society guidelines, and from drug-company sponsored studies.  And to them, drugs and procedure are all good.  If blood thinners help 0.6% of people with afib avoid meaningful strokes and kill 0.6% of people, to a doctor that means:  "You better take this medicine or you'll get a stroke, and there are really very few side effects."  We will dissect some of this deceptive thinking and provide you with tools that you had better bring to your doctor lest you become a victim of the number fixing game.  Remember, in the world of modern medicine, your numbers and diagnoses are more important that you are.  And in many cases, for patients not aware of the risks, that formula can well be debilitating and even fatal.