That's a very good post.
I would however add that a lot of cancer screening is actively discouraged by the NHS not because it doesn't work but because either (a) the cost-benefit argument does not meet NHS criteria for what a life is worth in their books (ex: the cost of £1000-a-time MRIs or biopsies for prostate cancer), or (b) there is no effective treatment anyway.
As regards ditching, my own take on it is that if you are not out of the cockpit, standing on the wing, with the life raft pack outside the cockpit and the activation cord in your hand, before the plane sinks, then you have messed up. That is what one must focus on achieving immediately upon ditching, plus grabbing the ELT (I have 2) and the emergency bag on the way out. I brief passengers accordingly, and twice.
Some people might think the raft is self inflating, or that it is OK to jump in and swim after it and climb in, etc.
I read somewhere that 15% of people die accidentally, so if 1-2% of pilots die in aircraft accidents, what does that tell us? It probably tells us that we spend far too little time flying
