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Thomas C. Prager, PhD, MPH; Richard G. Urso, MD; Richard S. Ruiz, MD
University of Texas Medical School Houston

JAMA. 1997;278(18):1489-1490.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

To the Editor.

—The article by Dr Goldzweig and colleagues¹ and the accompanying Editorial by Dr Obstbaum² address the utility of assessing patients' functional status relative to their lifestyle, but standardized patient input into the treatment decision deserves more emphasis. Shared decision making based on patient preferences is 1 mechanism suggested to document the need for therapy or surgery and to improve the quality of the decision.

It has been shown than physicians are often incorrect when trying to guess patients' preferences,³ and there is convincing evidence that physicians and patients evaluate the usefulness of therapy differently. In the absence of a validated questionaire, the results of the patient-physician decision are not uniform, as indicated by the fact that regional rates of cataract surgery have been shown to vary significantly. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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