Abusing patients by denying them choice

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7436.0-f

BMJ 2004;328 (14 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7436.0-f

Editor's choice

Abusing patients by denying them choice

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A useful tip for smart arse medical students. If asked: "Whatis the treatment for x?" Don't answer: "y." Instead answer:"Whatever the patient chooses together with me after being fullyinformed of the pluses and minuses of all options." Giving patientschoice in complex circumstances emerges as a theme in this issue—withthe sombre overtone that not to give patients choice is to abusethem.

It first hit me that denying patients choice is a form of abusewhen about six years ago I read a paper on patient choice inscreening for colorectal cancer. One hundred Californian patientswere given full information on five options: nothing, faecaloccult blood testing, barium enema examination, flexible sigmoidoscopy,or colonoscopy. Patients were told about the nature of the test,the preparation required, the need for sedation, the time required,how often the test would be repeated, the likely results withboth . . . [Full text of this article]

Richard Smith, editor

rsmith@bmj.com

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