Time on an MRI scanner (and to interpret and communicate the result) is a limited resource.

I fear unrestricted access would lead to over utilization by some people at the cost of less utilization by others. It could also lead to nontrivial psychological stress for people who can’t get a full understanding of the results. But I do think we need to strive for increased transparency from price lists to EHR interoperability to patient access to their own records.

MRI is profitable and not made from scarce materials. Increased demand will increase production.

Doctors are only scarce because they are members of a guild that uses monopoly power to restrict competition to prop up prices.

MRIs depend on liquid helium, a scarce material by definition, but that's besides the point.

There is a high bar to becoming a physician because the consequences for error can be so incredibly high. I want there to be more physicians/access to medical care than ever but I don't think compromising on quality is the way to get there.

Actually helium being scarce is a myth.

Are you sure? Seems to be pretty well documented that there is a shortage?

https://priceonomics.com/the-increasing-scarcity-of-helium/

http://www.heliumscarcity.com/

When it's cheaper to keep refilling an MRI scanner that boils off lots of helium, than buying one that loses only a little bit, then yes, you use a lot of helium.

It's not like we haven't discovered higher temperature superconductors that could be used, even if we didn't have helium.

EDIT: You can permanently fill 100 of these[1] per year with the boil off of one shitty MRI. Is uses about 1kg of He, so one year of world helium production would be enough to make one MRI machine for every 200 people. We are not constrained by helium.

[1] https://images.philips.com/is/content/PhilipsConsumer/Campai...

> Time on MRI scanner .. is a limited resource.

It's a limited resource similar to houses and carpenters. If it is permitted and there is funding, more can be built/trained.

How many "well educated adults" can convert 1 in 1000 to 0.1%?

It's not just members of the public who don't understand stats, it's some doctors too.

https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/157/Papers/health_stat...

This quote is from p61 but the whole thing is interesting)

> Note again the great difficulty large parts of the public, like the female veterans, have with translating small frequencies into percentages. Only 25% of the population could correctly convert 1 in 1,000 to 0.1%. Even among the highest education groups, at most 30% could solve this translation task. Lipkus, Samsa, andRimer (2001) even found that only 21% of well-educated adults could answer this question correctly.

You have prostate cancer. It's definitely cancer, this isn't a misdiagnosis.

Do you want the treatment, or do you want to do nothing?

This is a real choice faced by many men, in part because of the over-use of PSA testing.

https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/prostate/basic_info/benefits-harm...

That seems like a perfectly reasonable reason to me

It's a perfectly patronizing reason. If they're so concerned that test requires may be misinterpreted then the solution is better education. It is not their place to serve as gatekeepers.

More than “like”, I’d say “equivalent to”.