“What is most important to you? What are your worries?” Then, when they know your answers, they tell you about the red pill and the blue pill and which one would most help you achieve your priorities. Experts have come to call this shared decision making. It seemed to us medical students a nice way to work with patients as physicians. But it seemed almost entirely theoretical. Certainly, to the larger medical community, the idea that most doctors would play this kind of role for patients seemed far-fetched at the time. (Surgeons? “Interpretive?” Ha!) I didn’t hear clinicians talk about the
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