The end of participatory medicine?

[gretchen]

This article discusses the idea that people need to become more autonomous in terms of their medical care:
http://e-patients.net/archives/2014/12/ ... icine.html

There is another critical limitation to the kind of partnership that doctors and patients can develop. Much as with the the fable of the chicken and the pig, there’s a fundamental difference between the doctor’s involvement and the patient’s commitment in their care. In business, true partners share both risks and benefits. But this is not possible in healthcare, where the patient alone lives (or dies) with the consequences of medical decisions. That’s where the participatory medicine notion of doctors and patients as equal partners falls apart. Therefore, the patient alone must develop a sense of personal responsibility and learn to practice the inalienable nature of her authority over herself, if she so desires.

 

[burtlancast]

the patient alone must develop a sense of personal responsibility and learn to practice the inalienable nature of her authority over herself, if she so desires.

People have dreamed of alternatives to the medical profession ever since it came into existence:

The medical profession (is) a conspiracy to hide its own shortcomings. No doubt the same may be said of all professions. They are all conspiracies against the laity... Until there is a practicable alternative to blind trust in the doctor, the truth about the doctor is so terrible that we dare not face it.

George Bernard Shaw, "The Doctor's Dilemma," 1906