Your health, your decisions : how to work with your doctor to become a knowledge-powered patient / Robert Alan McNutt, M.D.

Title :

Your health, your decisions : how to work with your doctor to become a knowledge-powered patient

Author:

McNutt, Robert Alan,

Format:

Books

Summary:

"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."--Publisher's website.

Language:

English

ISBN - ISSN:

9781469629179

1469629178

Physical Description:

xii, 150 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Contents:

A story of failed decision making -- My medical-decision-making story -- Why not just ask my doctor what to do? -- Personal barriers to becoming your own medical decision maker -- Medical information -- Understanding medical information from experiments -- Does an apple a day keep the doctor away? -- The math of medical decision making -- How to determine the value of potential gains and losses to your health -- Making decisions -- Mr. B -- Beginning to make a decision -- The flow of information for people making medical decisions -- Mr. C -- Mrs. D's not-so-dramatic decision to make -- Using the informed medical-decision-making process for tests -- What if there is no reliable information? -- Clarifications -- Where to look for valuable medical information.

Subject:

Medical care -- Decision making.

Physician and patient.

First Title value, for Searching:

Your health, your decisions : how to work with your doctor to become a knowledge-powered patient / Robert Alan McNutt, M.D.

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Library	Audience	Home Location	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Central	Adult	Non-fiction	Book	610.696 M478	Searching... Unknown
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Summary

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.

Author Notes

Robert Alan McNutt, M.D., is a clinician, researcher, teacher, decision analyst,

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

The theme of McNutt's book is that patients should assume the central position in their health care decision-making process. The author makes some interesting points about decision making and its "barriers." For example, physicians occasionally are not trained as well as they should be to make health care decisions, and patients are often not qualified to make health care decisions at all. The author strongly believes that active health care participation is essential to getting the best care possible versus following the unopposed opinions of another. He presents a thorough, eight step decision-making checklist to assist patients with making informed, knowledgeable health care treatment choices. Included in the checklist are multiple steps/directions to analyze scientific information. McNutt, president and CEO of YouChooseMedical, LLC., succinctly discusses the science of medical decision making that he has used for over 25 years. He devotes chapters to teaching patients how to find, read, and analyze medical research. These chapters include tables and figures, as well as case studies to aid in patient education and empowerment. Although geared toward patient education, this work can be a valuable supplemental text for advanced nursing students, physician assistant students, and medical students. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; professionals and general readers. --Barbara Ann D'Anna, SUNY Delhi