YouSaid · the spoken record

Suzanne O’Sullivan

lines on the record: 39
first: 2026-04-12
most recent: 2026-04-12
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“To say to people, well, can I get the help that you are offering me without the label? If I'm feeling down and I could benefit from some counseling, well, why do you need to give me a label of being a depressed person or a person who has a mental health problem? Can you not give me the counseling without the label? Because I think we kind of think about labels as being necessary in order to get help. Whereas I would say very often, you know, if I go to the doctor and my blood pressure is on the borderline, I don't want to be called hypertensive, but I would like the advice about how I should change my lifestyle in order to improve things. So it's possible to be healthier without accruing lots of medical labels.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whether there are how much are you going to get from that label? So, where will it lead? What will it get you? In what way will it be useful? In what way could it potentially be harmful? So might it make you think differently about yourself? Might it make others treat you differently? Might it affect your ambition for the future, even practical things like will it mean that your mortgage, your life insurance goes up, your travel insurance goes up, that you can't drive your car? You know, so I think always, we never have to worry about these things at the if you're very sick, you don't worry about these things. But if you're at the milder end of any spectrum, then ask yourself.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, actually, the most surprising thing I've already said, which is my realization that even genetic tests are contextual, because they're so impressive looking in their you get back this phenomenally technical result. And, you know, it was just, you know, when I realized how incredibly contextual they were, I just thought, wow, it's just all fields of medicine are the same, which is that, you know, the clinical skills are more important than the lab result. But what I want people to kind of realize and to think about is when they approach a situation where someone is going to give them a diagnosis, and I think this applies particularly in, say, mental health labels, you know, do you, is it better to get a diagnosis that gives you that moment of validation or explanation? Is that a genuinely useful thing? And I think before you take the label, then think about”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Problem to the doctor, you feel like they've taken the time to listen and understand and give you an explanation back. That's what good medicine looks like. It's not the person you go to the doctor and say, well, I feel like there's something wrong. Can I have a test? That's not always the best doctor. But I think, you know, a little bit of us, we're a little bit now because we've got all these self-tracking things and we can have genetic tests and we can wear blood pressure cuffs. And I would say don't buy any of that stuff, you know, go to your doctor for the proper types of screening that are offered by standard health services and don't do any extras because somebody's making money out of making you anxious about your health basically. I should say that I don't have a fitness tracker, but I am obsessed with my step count. But I don't let it, at least it sort of, you know, it's not the worst one because I feel like it just encourages me to make sure I'm a little bit active every day. So it's just...”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Supposed to be thinking about that much into our conscious awareness. And then we get public conversation is just so kind of rule bound now. It's like if you don't have, you know, reading some things now, you would believe that if you didn't get seven hours of sleep, something catastrophic would happen to you. Or, you know, if you vary in some small way from other people that it's going to lead somewhere catastrophic, the best way to measure your sleep or your general well-being is how do you feel? Don't worry about how many hours you slept. If you wake up in the morning and you're refreshed and you're able to get through the day without having to have an app, well, then you had enough sleep. So I tried to tell people not to get too obsessed about all these bodily things. Never be afraid to go to the doctor if you're worried about something, but learn to recognize what good medicine looks like. And that's, again, you know, you explain your...”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. So, first it's always feel comfortable going to your doctor, but just know that, you know, be prepared to take the reassurance when it comes without necessarily having tests. But with regard to the fitness trackers and things, you know, all these bodily systems that so a healthy person, your body is not really supposed to be in your consciousness, really. You know, the body is changing all the time. So, you know, every time you go up a stairs, your heart rate increases, you know, every time you go up a flight of stairs, you're breathing increases. Every time you eat something, your bowels move. You know, you have X number of hours of sleep at night. And these are unconscious processes. These are happening at a level that we don't really notice them when we're healthy. And that's the best way for them to happen. You know, we shouldn't be noticing them. We should be just allowing them to happen. The difficulty with fitness trackers and things is they bring something.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I think sometimes when people hear a story like that maybe about Valentina's story or the example you just gave, then people kind of think, well, that's not, you know, that wouldn't happen to me or they think that perhaps that only happens to a certain sort of person, for example. But actually, we are all vulnerable to this. I say to people, when I'm in front of audiences, I always say to people, listen, if I told you that the person sitting beside you in this audience had headlies, it would not take very long for you to begin having the physical experiences as if you had it as well. So these sort of, you know, uncomfortable feelings that you get just from an idea are very, very powerful and they affect all of us. So imagine if replace headlies with genetic abnormality or something abnormal on a scan and imagine the impact of that.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And you need to know. So, yeah, so I think I probably even at the beginning of this journey relied on genetic tad too much. And that's because I've always, the history of genetic testing for doctors is we only ever tested people who were already symptomatic or already had a family member who was sick. This concept of testing perfectly healthy people with no family history is really new and it's really taught me a valuable lesson about how much we don't know and that's why the story is so important.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I thought every test was like Huntington's that you, if you had the abnormal gene that you would get the or that you were at risk of the disorder, it was only through the journey of this book and talking to a lot of geneticists that I discovered even their context is everything, that if you only are at risk of the disorder if the disorder is also in your family, it's not the gene alone that we don't, that there's also probably there may be something else in the family that puts you at the risk of disorder. So for example, if you have a cancer gene and lots of people in your family have cancer, then that cancer gene is very important and you may wish to act on it. But alternative, you add the cancer gene and no one in your family has cancer. Maybe it's not as important to you. Maybe your family also has a gene that protects against cancer. So every test is like that. There's loads of kind of...”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's really, you know, I always say the doctor, you know, the good doctor is the doctor who you feel like you've told them your story and they have understood it and they have listened properly and they have done the appropriate examination. And then the test is just a kind of a supplement to that because it's only in the context of the story that the test makes sense. The test on its own, I think sometimes we think we'll get into one of those worlds like Star Trek where they run one of those machines up and down your body. And listen, we might well get into that, but we're not anywhere near it at the moment. I mean, I really learned a very valuable lesson about genetics, actually, in this context. I thought that, you know, for a long time, I thought if you had a genetic test and the test, you know, let's say Huntington, since we talked a little bit before, you know.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, yeah, and it's the opposite actually. And I know that what you're saying there is exactly what many people think, which is that the test is the ultimate decider. But actually, it's a matter of taking the text in the context, the test result in the context of the story and the examination. And I fear that, you know, we are certainly in the UK where someone I'm a very specialist doctor. So I do get to spend quite a long time with my patients. But GPs and family doctors, they get so little time. And I think, you know, if we want better medicine, we shouldn't be investing in more MRI scans and blood tests. We should be investing in that doctor's time to listen to that patient's story.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's so true. And actually, because I very much come from the, let's say the early 90s and before then, that was when if you came to a neurologist like myself and you had a set of symptoms and you're worried there was something wrong with you, it was a very, very clinic, a time of clinical diagnosis where you're really, you're listening to the story really carefully to kind of understand the nuance of the symptoms. You're examining someone carefully. You see them a second time to see if things have changed. Now I worry as tests have become increasingly available that we might be getting into an era where people are listening less well to the stories and relying on the tests. But I can guarantee you that relationship with your patient, that history and examination is the reliable part of the journey and that's what we need to invest in.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I do a brain scan. The difficulty, we're back to this difficulty again, we're all different on the outside, but we're equally different on the inside. And you do a brain scan and you find a cyst or an abnormal blood vessel or a white spot. And these things are very common on brain scans. Now I've done a brain scan in order to reassure you that everything is okay.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because you're kind of protecting yourself. It's sort of a very satisfying interaction between a patient and a doctor. Let's imagine a situation somebody comes to me with a headache and they're convinced they have a brain tumor. And I say to them, well, great, I'll do a brain scan. They're delighted because now they're having the ultimate test that will prove they don't have a brain tumor. I feel better because they're happy. I've also protected myself against making a mistake by doing the test. Now that might sound to lots of people like that's a great medical encounter. That's how it should happen. Unfortunately, I don't think that is how it should happen. I'll explain why. Because if you do a brain scan for no particularly great reasons, so let's say I see headaches are really common and I don't truly believe that this person has a brain tumor.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, it is very difficult. So, first of all, as you said, prevention is always better than cure. So you shouldn't need to have screening done or genetic test done to tell you're at risk of heart disease to know that you shouldn't smoke and you shouldn't, you know, so if you want to put your anxious energy into anything, then put that anxious energy into good lifestyle because we know that keeps people healthier for longer. I would say that don't, you know, that sometimes people equate good medicine with lots of tests so I might encounter people who say, well, you know, I went to the doctor and he said he didn't think there was anything wrong with me. I didn't need any tests. And that reassurance might be considered, you know, he didn't do any tests. That's not the best medicine. They might encounter another doctor who does 10 tests and they say, well, those tests meant that doctor was taking me seriously. I can tell you as a doctor that the easiest thing in the world to do is tests.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, when a woman gets a call back from that mammogram, she doesn't have to instantaneously react with fear. And also we need to let people know that if you have a cancer found on screening, it's okay to wait briefly and decide what you want to do. You know, my reaction would be fairly instantaneous if I'm being honest. If we talked about these things differently, women might feel that they have the space to say, well, can I have another scan in a couple of months time and see if this thing is changing rather than leaping into that treatment?”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, my reaction would be even having all this knowledge get it out. And it's because it's the way we talk about, we equate the cancer found on screening with the cancer that causes symptoms. So I should be really clear for anyone listening. If you have cancer-causing symptoms, meaning you feel a lump or you've got blood or you've got pain, that always needs treatment. So I'm talking about the kind of cancer you're 100% well and someone goes out and does an MRI scan and finds some abnormal cells. That does not necessarily always need to be treated, but that's not something everyone is aware of. And because we call the cancer found due to symptoms, the same thing as the cancer found on screening, it's terrifying when you get that result back. So some people would argue that these two beasts are not exactly the same thing. So perhaps you should have a slightly different name for them.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I've not in any way researched HPV, so I don't want to in any way say that I'm an expert. But that would be more, so let's come back to something I have researched. So let's say that like breast cancer, if you look at that in the same way that you're talking about HPV, you find the cell. There's two different strategies you can take, which is that you can either treat it every one of them as a life-threatening cancer and just give every woman the operation and potentially some kind of chemotherapy. Or you can say, well, we don't totally know that this will become cancer and this is more like the HPV example. It's just a precursor sake, for example. And you could do watchful waiting, meaning exactly what you're suggesting, which is you just follow someone up over time. The difficulty is, though, if you're a woman and you just had a mammogram and someone told you you've got cancer cells, you know, what would your reaction be? We are both women.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The man who will get life-threatening cancer from the man who won't. So when we find them, it's very difficult to know who do you treat aggressively and who do you just watch and wait for? And the consequence of that, and that's the same, not just for prostate cancer, but for every kind of cancer, it means that we find abnormal cells and we treat all of them as if they were life-threatening cancers when in fact only some of them are because we're just not at the technological point yet of telling the bad ones from the good ones.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But that was before we fully realized how many of us have abnormal cells inside our body that would never progress to cancer. So as we age, we get these abnormal cells. And let's say a study on the prostate done in Detroit looked at, I might get these figures slightly wrong, I think it's right, 45% of men in their 50s and something like 50 or no more than that, 60% of men in their 70s have abnormal cells in their prostate. Now we can look for those cells. A, we can look for them and we have the technology to find them. But the truth of the matter is that most of those will never develop into a life-threatening cancer. But when we find them, we've got these great ability to look for them and find them. We cannot tell.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so let's make the distinction between early diagnosis and diagnosis of very mild or atypical cases and prevention. So I would think about prevention as eat healthily, don't smoke, don't, you know, exercise. So that's clearly always good. It's always good to do the things that avoid giving you disease like not smoking, not drinking too much, exercising, sleeping, etc. The difficulty is, and it sounds so sensible, and it's so...”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No doubt in great, great detail, you know, we didn't until we got our current MRI machines, we didn't even, we couldn't even look at the inside of a healthy body in any kind of safe way. So we didn't know how many little differences there are. And then you take genetic tests, the first whole human genome took 13 years to sequence, began in 1990, finished in 2003. That was the first time we'd seen a whole human genome. Now you can do the same testing in 24 hours. So we've kind of got a combination of, and we also have a new attitude to since about the 70s to seeking out illness. So I think pre-1970s, you had to get sick. I mean, in terms of screening and things, you know, it used to be that you didn't, yeah. So it used to be that, you know, you only went to your doctor if you were sick. But since about the 70s, we have increasingly developed screening programs.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Much more standardized on the inside, but it quite simply frankly isn't. Then we've got to remember that we're all aging on the outside and we're also aging on the inside. And that comes with different kind of irregularities in tests. Now we add to that the fact that, you know, when I qualified as a doctor in 1991, we didn't even have MRI machines. You know, there was hardly any, you know, they had been developed for research, but they were just trickling into clinical practice. So now we've got sort of, you know, when I was in medical school, there was only so many tests you could do. Now we can do MRI scans and see the inside of the healthy body in technical or in a way that will not quite technical. We haven't got that for yet.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First of all, I think, you know, we're scared of illness, we're scared of death, we're desperately, we're scared of aging, we're desperately kind of staving all these things off. And, you know, I don't have any objection to any sort of intervention or advice that actually keeps people healthy. But the problem with too many investigations is they actually can make you sick, ironically. So let's say that if I see very young people and patients very often. Now, we do batteries of various tests for various things. It's quite unusual to get a full battery of tests back with not a single abnormality on it. It just rarely happens. The bottom line is I always try to remind people, well, first of all, look how different we are on the outside. You know, we all have similar sort of fundamental elements, but we don't look the same. There's a kind of an expectation that everything is.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I mean, and also when Valentina had her test, she had extensive amounts of genetic counseling beforehand, but you can now go and buy these tests over the counter. And they do, I mean, in fairness to companies who sell them, they do ask you to read the small print. But who reads the small print? So, yeah, I would generally recommend that what I learned from not just Valentina, I spoke to lots of people from the Huntington's disease community is I What I learned was the value of living with hope of any kind of future, you know, living with the belief that, you know, you can be anything and life can go anywhere. There is value in that. It's very interesting that, you know, Valentina couldn't have had a test at the age 28. She didn't. That is the choice that 90% of people with Huntington's disease at risk of Huntington's make. And they make it because as a community, they've understood.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Visual memory starts declining when you're about 30 or in your 30s. I'm of the age now where I'm like, you know, I cannot remember the name of a movie.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Would you have that test? A lot of people kind of say, yeah, I'd like to have it because then I could decide, would I retire early? Would I worry less about the mortgage? Would I live my life differently? And they're very valid arguments. And if you know you're a person who respond in a really positive way, it's perfectly fine to have a test like that. But the difference between a genetic test for Alzheimer's and a genetic test for Huntington's is the Huntington's disease is a certainty, but the genetic test for Alzheimer's is just a risk factor. And the difficulty is that a person really could, if you get back that positive result, some people will respect positively to it and use it as a driving force to live their life differently. But other people could have the experience at Valentina had, which is let's remind ourselves, you know, our brains, our memories, I hate to depress people, but you're, you're...”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think, yeah, I think depression is a good example. Let's stick with genetics example for one second. So now these days you can have a genetic test that tells you you're at an increased risk of having dementia. Now, it's not like, now you can't have that test, by the way, as a routine on the NHS, but people get it in the private sector and on those over-the-counter tests. Now, if I talk to people and I say,”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We all get flustered in airports, but when that happened to Valentina, it took on monumental significance and then spiraled out of control. We all get angry and fight with people. When it happened to Valentina, it really kind of entered the frame of her consciousness and was amplified by that. And this is the problem with labels. A label changes your experience of your body. It changes how you interpret things that are happening to you. And that's what scares me about them.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Surprised that she put it off that long. She put it off that long because she was a busy working mother who wanted to just live her life. Put it off so that she could enjoy not knowing the result and get on with the kind of hope that it would be negative. But she was so disabled when she had the test that she was sure it would be positive. And she had the test and it was negative. She didn't have Huntington's disease. And this is really, you know, very few people will ever encounter Huntington's disease, but this story is a ubiquitous one that we all are kind of at risk of. If you are believed that you have a disease and you've been given a label that makes you believe that your body might potentially start exhibiting symptoms, then you will begin over interpreting little things.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of counselling from a genetic counselor, and she realized if the test came back positive, you know, this first pregnancy that she was so looking forward to, having looking after her first child would be completely overshadowed. So she chose not to have the test. And she had a second child and continued making the choice not to have the test because she wanted to live with the hope the test would be negative and get on with her life. But what happened over the next few years is she became, first of all, she watched her mother decline with Huntington's and then she began seeing all the same symptoms in herself. She became, her personality was changing. She got into arguments more easily. She was bumping into things. Every time she went to an airport, she traveled for business. She simply couldn't handle it. The level of organization, her brain could no longer do it. She waited 20 years until she was actually quite disabled to decide to go ahead and have the test. Now, some people will be.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Manifestations, so it starts with psychiatric symptoms and personality change. And then there are physical symptoms that are kind of involuntary movements. And as it sort of declines, people become so disabled they can't eat, they can't swallow, they can't speak. So it's a very distressing disease that to watch in a loved one. But the minute the Valentina discovered that her mother was affected, it meant that she had a 50-50 chance of having it. And you can imagine, I mean, she's pregnant with her first child. It's an absolutely devastating thing to learn. The diagnosis not only meant that she had a 50-50 chance of developing this awful disease, but her child had a 25% chance. Now, the impact on Valentina was absolutely enormous. I mean, she could have had a genetic test to find out if she had it straight away, but she had extended.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because you are already disabled by the disorder. So when I'm talking about problems like overdiagnosis and harms of diagnosis, I'm always talking about that other end of the spectrum where the symptoms or difficulties are much fewer. That's where someone is vulnerable to harm. So if your symptoms are much fewer, you have less to gain from the diagnosis, but you have more to lose through being labeled as having something wrong with you. And I might tell a little bit of that Huntington story just to illustrate exactly what I'm talking about. So this is a story of Valentina. And when she was 28 years old, she learned quite out of the blue, she was pregnant with her first child and she discovered that her mother had Huntington's. Now, for those who don't know, Huntington's disease is a genetic condition. It's a neurodegenerative condition currently untreatable. It presents us really quite distressing.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, no, let me, because it is a very sort of, let's say that 20 years ago or before I started worrying and thinking deeply about this subject, I might have thought that an explanation is always a good thing and that there's no particular downside to it. What I really want people to understand is that every time you get a medical label or a diagnosis, it potentially brings benefits and a potentially can be harmful in other ways. balance that worries me. And I would say that generally if you're at the severe end of a disease or disorder spectrum, so let's say you have a disability that's very, very disabling, so you can't function normally in the world, then a diagnosis which brings an explanation and support is generally very helpful because you need a lot and you have a lot to gain. And the harm of having your difficulties labelled as disease or disorder is very small.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It serves lots of purposes. Obviously, people want a diagnosis so that they have an explanation and they understand what's happening to their body or to their mind. So that's an explanation can give people a lot of ease. But it shouldn't stop there. It should then lead somewhere meaningful. Now, the ideal place for it to lead is to a treatment that either completely cures the problem or alleviates the symptom substantially. But of course, we can't do that for everybody. So if it doesn't cure people, one would hope that it would lead somewhere substantial, like some symptom relief, or if symptoms cannot easily be relieved, then some sort of meaningful kind of support in the world that makes people lives easier. And this is where I think the concept of over-diagnosis comes in with the patients I've been encountering is they get a diagnosis and it doesn't lead anywhere. And one has to really question.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Put very clearly at the start of a conversation because I find that many people don't when you say the word overdiagnosis and over medicalization, a lot of people kind of think, oh, there's nothing wrong. Someone was complaining about nothing, that this overdiagnosis just means people are snowflakes or complaining about very little. So when I'm talking in this conversation or any conversation about overdiagnosis and over-medicalization, I'm talking about a diagnosis may be right or it may be wrong, but it isn't necessarily helpful at a point in time. So sometimes referring to something as a medical problem is not the optimum way of managing it. I'm not suggesting dismissing people. I'm saying that sometimes we can help people without medical labels. And that is precisely for the point that you, you know, relevant to the question you just asked me, which is what's the diagnosis for?”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. And that's so important because I think it's something that's going a little bit wrong now. Maybe I could start by actually defining, because the book talks an awful lot about overdiagnose and over-medicalization. So maybe I'll just start by saying what they are, because I think it's really helpful to have it really.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That would be okay if I felt like these long lists of diagnosis were leading somewhere meaningful where diagnosis should lead. So they get a diagnosis, they get treatment, they get better, they move on. But what I see is a recurring pattern of people accumulating medical diagnosis without actually getting better. And that really sort of has worried me a great deal in my own practice. And that was a big kind of impetus for writing this book.”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I've been a doctor since 1991. So I've been a doctor for a long time. I've been a neurologist for over 20 years. And this book really came out of a sort of growing anxiety of mine that has kind of arisen out of experiences with my own patients. So I look after people who are very young, very often. I mean, a range of patients, but many of my patients are in their 20s or in their 30s. And particularly in the last five years, but maybe in the last 10 to 15 years. General, I've noticed an increasing number of spectacularly young people coming to me with long lists of medical diagnoses and”
2026-04-12 · Intelligence Squared · Is There a Crisis of Overdiagnosis in Modern Medicine? With Dr Suzanne O’Sullivan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT