Your Health Your Decisions

In nearly every medical-decision-making encounter, the physician is at the center of the discussion, with the patient the recipient of the physician's decisions. Dr. Robert Alan McNutt starts from a very different premise: the patient should be at the center. McNutt challenges the physician-directed, medical-expertise model of making decisions, presenting a practical approach augmented by formal exercises designed to give patients the tools and confidence to compare and contrast their health-care options so they can make their own choices. He addresses a number of scenarios, including heart disease, breast cancer, and prostate cancer—conditions that pose a range of choices that patients may face about diagnoses and treatments. After providing a clear explanation of what is the highest quality medical-decision-making information, McNutt teaches patients to use that information to weigh the harms and benefits of their treatment options, empowering them to ask critical questions as they take a stronger hand in their own care. Your Health, Your Decisions moves from specific scenarios that commonly baffle patients to a systematic exploration of how to make medical decisions. By offering patients the tools they need to be full partners in their own health care, McNutt demystifies what can be a bewildering and even terrifying process.

We've all been there, sittinguncomfortably in a paper gownas a doctor impassively describesour prognosis. Sometimes it's simple andtreatable. Other times we get news wecan't fathom and then are faced withdecisions that are literally life and death. In this revolutionary book, physician,behavioral scientist, and bioethicist PeterUbel, M.D., reveals how hidden dynamicsin the doctor/patient relationship keepus and our loved ones from making thebest medical choices. From doctors whostruggle to explain, to patients who failto properly listen, countless factors alterthe course of our care, causing things togo seriously awry. With riveting stories of Ubel's own experiencein the field, his groundbreakingresearch, and his personal journey walkingloved ones through difficult treatmentchoices, Critical Decisions will foreverchange the way we communicate insidehospitals and medical offices, wherethoughtful decision making matters themost. Dr. Ubel has been on both endsof the stethoscope, and in this book,he shows how patients and doctorscan learn to become partners and worktogether to make the right choices. Fromchoosing to get surgery, to discussingthe side effects of a blood pressure medication,we can finally discover the toolsto improve communication, understandthe issues, and make confident decisionsfor our future health and happiness.

A guide to seeking and assessing health advice from many sources.

Enhancing your decision-making skills to make smarter decisions is the best way you can purposefully improve your life.

For all the talk about personalized medicine, our health care system remains a top-down, doctor-driven system where individuals are too often bit players in their own health decisions. In The Decision Tree, Thomas Goetz proposes a new strategy for thinking about health, one that applies cutting-edge technology to put us at the center of the equation and explains how the new frontier of health care can impact each of our lives.

Human change takes time and effort and you have only just begun your journey when you choose to decide how you want to live your life. It all begins with making one decision at a time and turning that decision into action. Reading this book is an opportunity to jump right into the heart of life, instead of standing on the edge, wishing your life away. When some hear the words, "Seven Key Decisions to Leading a More Rewarding Life," they may feel that this book will lay out seven systematic decisions that build upon each other leading to nirvana. However, you may be surprised when you find out what the seven key decisions are because this is not a business book where a step-by-step process has been laid out to achieve an objective. Strategic plans and tactics are not discussed. Although, like developing a strategic plan by starting with a vision, the overwhelming vision of this book is for readers to find within themselves the ability to achieve a more rewarding life.

Drs. Groopman and Hartzband reveal a clear path for making the right medical choices. Such factors as authority figures, statistics, other patients' stories, technology, and natural healing are key factors that shape choices.

We all have a different life, and yet we all are common. In the end, we all are humans, and we all make decisions. But some amongst us are more successful than others. What's the difference? How come some people get more success than others? Do our decisions affects us? Well, those are some weighty questions, but they all have answers to them. Your decisions have the power to pave the path of your life. Your decision affects each moment of your life as you are making some kind of decision every second. But do you know how you are making decisions every second? This book will help you understand the power of decision making and how your decisions affect your life. It will help you understand how you can make more mindful choices. Whether you are already great at decision making or you won't become great at it. This book will help you because the domain of decisions is endless.