When doctors tell you what you must do, how do you react?

There is a code word in medical lingo that all doctors are supposed to follow: shared decision making.  In other words, doctors should provide you with information and then let you make the final decision about what to do.  But that rarely happens.  Far too often doctors hide behind their white coats and declare that there is only one right answer and that you must follow what they say, or else!  Well, not in those words, much more sophisticated words, but that's what they are saying.  Very often the information they insist is absolutely accurate and right is not.  Very little medical information is absolutely accurate and right.  Most is nuanced and should be customized to each patient.  And much of the information endorsed by doctors is fed to them by specialty societies and drug companies.  As a patient you have to be careful, which we'll discuss in upcoming podcasts.  Today we talk about why doctor absolutism is very dangerous.

"The greater the ignorance, the greater the dogmatism." -William Osler, MD

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