This week on CNE Health I blog about whether doctors should tell their patients about treatments that are not covered by third party payers. Two articles in the BMJ bring up this issue, arguing for or against. I think the disclosure side has far better arguments, and given the comments to the articles the readers of BMJ seem to agree.
Daniel K. Sokol also has a good article in the same issue, pointing out a few good heuristics for helping patient autonomy. I liked the idea of "thinking out loud" when answering the patient question "what would you do?". That shows respect and invites discourse, especially since differences in evaluation and goals become more clear.
Posted by Anders3 at April 25, 2007 12:01 PM