[Overmedicalization: When too much medicine harms]

Overmedicalization refers to non-validated medical practices, with no clear benefits, potentially harmful and therefore unnecessarily costly. Awareness is growing with respect to this serious public health problem. Permanent expansion of diagnostic or therapeutic interventions, disease mongering, inadequate management of diagnostic uncertainty, conflict of interest or lack of commitment by physicians and patients in shared decision making. Overmedicalization is made possible by a lack of training of health professionals and users on medical decision process. Only a multidisciplinary research program, involving medical and non-medical worlds, will allow the implementation of corrective actions.