Shared decision making

Shared decision making based on both evidence and patient preference is popular in the medical literature of late.  I don’t understand why anyone would object.

'Taking a history’ is one of the first clinical tasks medical students are taught. The logic behind this is inescapable: without the history, attempts at diagnosis and treatment are doomed to failure. We start our training with the history, when we present patients for discussion with other doctors (in training or later, in practice) we start with the history. And except in rare emergencies, we start every patient interaction with the history.  The history: it always starts there but it doesn’t end there.

In a previous post I talked about some important questions I ask myself in my attempt to avoid missing the correct diagnosis.

There is also a set of questions I like to ask the patient, usually at the conclusion of the visit while I am typing our collaborative assessment and plan into the EHR, to ensure that the patient and I are literally on the same page.