“Patients have come to expect miracles in medicine as the norm, yet these miracles are not without inherent risk,” cautions Mason.
The responsibility to provide the patient with true patient-cantered care relies on doctors’ ability to supply patients with accurate, evidence-based information and to improve communication.
However, patients do not get motivated just by evidence-based medicine, they are often willing to adopt the promises of direct-to- consumer marketing.
According to Mason, the doctor’s responsibility is “to maintain control of validated information sources and of the exchange of information with the patient. [Doctors] need to be interpreters and balancers of scientific information to help guide [their] patients through the maze of medical hyperbole. [They] need to discuss new treatments and technologies openly and honestly.”
And crucially, they must also understand that although patients’ demands are changing, the surgeon’s accountability and responsibility for their patient’s safety and care have not.
Source-ANI
SPH/M