Shared decision making

Evidence based medicine has much to offer, but one has to remember Einstein’s famous remark: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts.”

The trend of the last two decades toward patient-centered (or family-centered) medicine is unmistakable and and a very good thing. Unfortunately, it is often discussed in the abstract, which obscured the fact that no two patients are identical in their needs or desires. Kevin Pho’s recent discussion gets it right: