Patients are experts in their own field

摘要

The notion of being concerned with the interests of patients is not new. It is as old as medicine. What is new, or relatively new, is the question of how that concern is best dealt with. Who is the best judge of a patient's interests? For almost the whole of the history of modern medicine, this question was not asked because the need to ask it was not recognised. A patient's interests were best judged by the patient's doctor. That was part of what a doctor did. Patients knew nothing of clinical matters. How could they be expected to decide what was good for them? Indeed, it was cruel to impose such a burden?