Invited commentary

Excerpt

Gone are the days when patients have no means of easily accessing information about their diagnosis and the various treatment options available to them. Before the days of Internet access, patients relied heavily on their physician and surgeon for advice and treatment options. Recently, Wirtz pointed out a paradigm shift in the physician–patient relationship to include shared decision making [1]. Research has illustrated that informed patients are better equipped to deal with their illness and to have less psychological distress in coping with their disease [2, 3]. As patients become more consumer savvy in their quest for medical care, so must the physician be aware of the information that the patient brings to the consultation. “A little knowledge can be dangerous” especially if the information a patient obtains is false or misleading. …