Surgeons almost uniformly attacked the idea that patients should be allowed to choose. As one surgeon asked, “If doctors have such trouble deciding which treatment is best, how can patients decide?” But, as Katz wrote, the decision involved not technical but personal issues: Which was more important to Iphigenia—the preservation of her breast or the security of living without a significant chance that the lump would grow back? No doctor was the authority on these matters.
The case for letting patients choose
