Your Health, Your Decisions

In nearly every medical-decision-making encounter, the physician is atthe center of the discussion, with the patient the recipient of the physician’sdecisions. Dr. Robert Alan McNutt starts from an opposite premise: thepatient should be at the center. McNutt challenges the physician-directed,medical-expertise model of making decisions, presenting a practicalapproach augmented by formal exercises designed to give patients the toolsand confidence to compare and contrast their health-care options so theycan make their own choices. He addresses a number of scenarios, includingheart disease, breast cancer, and prostate cancer—conditions that pose arange of choices that patients may face about diagnoses and treatments.

After providing a clear explanation of what is the highest quality medical-decision-making information, McNutt teaches patients to use thatinformation to weigh the harms and benefits of their treatment options,empowering them to ask critical questions as they take a stronger hand intheir own care. Your Health, Your Decisions moves from specific scenariosthat commonly baffle patients to a systematic exploration of how to makemedical decisions. By offering patients the tools they need to be full partnersin their own health care, McNutt demystifies what can be a bewildering andeven terrifying process.