Your Health, Your Decisions: How to Work with Your Doctor to Become a Knowledge-Powered Patient

By Robert Alan McNutt and Robert Alan McNutt MD

In nearly every medical-decision-making encounter, the physician is at the center of the discussion, with the patient the recipient of the physician's decisions. Dr. Robert Alan McNutt starts from a very different premise: the patient should be at the center. McNutt challenges the physician-directed, medical-expertise model of making decisions, presenting a practical approach augmented by formal exercises designed to give patients the tools and confidence to compare and contrast their health-care options so they can make their own choices. He addresses a number of scenarios, including heart disease, breast cancer, and prostate cancer--conditions that pose a range 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 that information to weigh the harms and benefits of their treatment options, empowering them to ask critical questions as they take a stronger hand in their own care. Your Health, Your Decisions moves from specific scenarios that commonly baffle patients to a systematic exploration of how to make medical decisions. By offering patients the tools they need to be full partners in their own health care, McNutt demystifies what can be a bewildering and even terrifying process.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1469629178
• ISBN13: 9781469629179
• Release Date: September 2016
• Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
• Length: 164 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.6"