A routine physical examination ensures that you stay in good health. A physical can also be a preventive step. It allows you to catch up on vaccinations or detect a serious condition, like cancer or ...

Doctors can sometimes identify the causes of a person’s headache with a physical exam. During the exam, they look for any signs of underlying conditions and explore the person’s history to establish ...

Dear Dr. Roach: In your response to "R.J." in your column "In exams, doctors seem to have lost their touch," you missed an opportunity to educate the writer on the role of the physical examination.

Doctors have long relied on physical exams to diagnose health problems, but in recent years expensive tests have taken the place of the tried-and-true physical. Dr. Abraham Verghese says the physicals ...

For centuries, doctors diagnosed illness using their own senses, by poking, prodding, looking, listening. From these observations, a skilled doctor can make amazingly accurate inferences about what ...

When you’re leaking urine, your doctor needs to find out what’s causing it in order to treat you. There are a lot of different ways to test what’s behind your incontinence. You’ll need a physical exam ...