The article discusses the transition of patients becoming the experts of their own bodies over the past 40 years, emphasizing the importance of patient participation in research, education, and clinical decision-making. However, it highlights challenges including the complexity of symptom recognition, which can be influenced by emotions and prior experiences. Moreover, treatment selection brings its own difficulties, often clouded by unconscious biases that may hinder effective decisions, ultimately posing potential risks to patient well-being and the healthcare system.
Over the past 40 years, there has been a dramatic shift from the expert doctor who should be revered and obeyed to an increasing role for patients as the experts of their own bodies. As researchers, we run patient participation groups before, during, and after our studies; use qualitative methods to hear their voices; and run surveys to gain their feedback. As teachers, we ask patient advocates to share their experiences of illness with our students, and as clinicians, we aim for shared decision-making and gain informed consent before embarking upon any intervention.
Is it hunger? Pain? Tiredness? Stress? Boredom or loneliness? Is it indigestion or a heart attack? Or is it just wind? Can a doctor help, and is it too embarrassing to ask? Symptoms are perceptions, not sensations, that need to be noticed and named, and this process is influenced by our emotions, how busy we are, our sense of self, and our past experiences of our own bodies, those of our friends and families, and the health care system.
Having a symptom, giving that symptom a name, and taking that symptom to the doctor is not as straightforward as it might seem. We may be experts in how we feel right now, but there may be an error in this feeling. So, when we decide we have a symptom and then choose to take our symptom to the doctor, we need the help of another kind of expert to work out what is going on.
Choosing treatments can be difficult due to unconscious biases that both patients and doctors have. Sometimes, patient choice can even harm the patient and the health care system.
#patient-advocacy #healthcare-decision-making #symptom-recognition #unconscious-bias #patient-empowerment
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