For starters, let’s discuss preventive medicine. The main purposes of preventive medicine are the following:

1. Try to prevent diseases from occurring in the first place (primary prevention). An example of this is vaccination.
2. Detect diseases early and treat them (secondary prevention). A good example of this is screening for cancer, which has the goal of detecting precursors to cancer or early cancer. This can improve the prognosis.
3. Prevent progression of the disease once it is established (tertiary prevention). An example of this would be taking certain medications after a heart attack, to prevent complications that can happen afterwards.

"A little understanding goes a long way, and the more informed patients are about their screening options, the better."

For the purposes of this article, we will be focusing on screening tests. When patients want to know about the best way to screen for diseases such as cancer, many would like a “black and white“...