> MRIs are great for certain things like herniated disks in your back.
I have had a lot of experience with MRIs on both myself (back and knee [1]) and my dogs with herniated discs. The doctors always make it sound like MRIs are great to confirm what's suspected because of other symptoms like pain, but a point in time MRI alone is not that valuable. Everyone's bodies (including animals!) are surprisingly different inside making normal be somewhat unique. I think what would be interesting is if scanning technology like MRIs could be made so inexpensive and easy that everyone had one done 4x/year. That way it's the differential being checked and I'm guessing it would be way more valuable. Normalization such as this could also lower anxiety around findings.
[1] Even when I tore my ACL the MRI came back only as probable.
I have had a lot of experience with MRIs on both myself (back and knee [1]) and my dogs with herniated discs. The doctors always make it sound like MRIs are great to confirm what's suspected because of other symptoms like pain, but a point in time MRI alone is not that valuable. Everyone's bodies (including animals!) are surprisingly different inside making normal be somewhat unique. I think what would be interesting is if scanning technology like MRIs could be made so inexpensive and easy that everyone had one done 4x/year. That way it's the differential being checked and I'm guessing it would be way more valuable. Normalization such as this could also lower anxiety around findings.
[1] Even when I tore my ACL the MRI came back only as probable.