Health & Fitness - Picky patients making doctors scurry

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Picky patients making doctors scurry

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (UPI) -- Informed patients, often with high expectations, are causing doctors to adjust their bedside manner, a U.S. study found.

The study, published in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, found changes in society and technology have resulted in patients who expect to be listened to and who want to be fully involved in clinical decision-making.

Education, affluence, information sources -- including the Internet -- direct-to-consumer marketing result in patients not merely requesting care but requesting a particular operation or even a particular implant. Patients no longer show their doctors absolute and unquestionable respect.

"Patients have come to expect miracles in medicine as the norm, yet these miracles are not without inherent risk," study author Dr. Bohannon Mason of the Orthocarolina Hip and Knee Center in Charlotte, N.C,, said in a statement.

However, Mason cautioned patients might not necessarily be motivated by evidence-based medicine and may be willing to adopt the promises of direct-to-consumer marketing.

Doctors need to, in Mason's view, "maintain control of validated information sources and of the exchange of information with the patient" as they serve "as the interpreters and balancers of scientific information to help guide patients through the maze of medical hyperbole."

Copyright 2008 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 02/12/2008

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