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Lessons learnt
Evidence-based healthcare, shared decision making, minimally disruptive medicine and value-based healthcare are all different tools for shaping the future of healthcare. They represent different ways of addressing various problems many countries are facing in providing more value for patients, improving health and reducing sickness.
As a physician, apart from taking care of patients, I teach the use of evidence in practice, to both students and colleagues. In this text though, I want to relate my experience about something different, that is, educating the lay public.
For many years now, I have had the opportunity to address groups of men and women aged from 30 to 60 years attending preretirement seminars. In that setting, I taught more than 1500 individuals. The themes I cover are diverse but include life habits and their impact on good health, addressing risks, how screening is a choice and questions they should ask their providers when offered different options in addressing their health issues.
I describe some of the lessons I have learnt throughout these years. Some of the conclusions I make have not been formally studied but I share my experience hoping to foster thoughts on how to best address this objective of the EBM manifesto.
First lesson
Patients are very aware of their responsibility to take control of their life.
It might not seem like it in our offices when we see patients one on …
Footnotes
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Not required.
Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.