In the past, the doctor determined the best treatment for a patient.
Now we know that it is better that the treatment also fits the life of the patient. This is called ‘decide together’ and has a number of clear advantages:
In short: decide together! In this concept, the patient is part of the team of caregivers and is not on the sidelines while the caregivers determine what is right for the patient.
You have to learn about thousands of diseases a patient tells the doctor. I just have to concentrate on MY illness. Which of us two is do you think the expert?
Deciding together consists of the following steps of shared decision-making (Stiggelbout, 2015):
The advice is to take a reflection time between these steps with the aim of handling emotions and choosing the best suitable treatment together.