patients the option to ask their clinicians, 'Can I have an opioid-free
anesthetic? Are there other medicines you can give me?' It's no
longer, 'Trust me, I'm your doctor, take these pills.'"
Instead, the approach is, in Dr. Dickerson's words, "Here are my
goals and preferences for you. What are your goals and prefer-
ences, and how do we align those?" He says guidelines are moving
in this collaborative direction. "Patients now are really put off by
not being able to participate in their care," he says. "They want to
be informed of what the plan is. They want to be involved in mak-
ing that plan. And they want to know that everything that could be
done for them is being done. How do we achieve that? We need to
give them the confidence that we're doing the best job we possibly
can."
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