Many patients report that they wish they had more time to talk with their doctors. Others regret that they had other questions to ask and forgot or felt rushed. Sometimes they want better, more-detailed answers, but because of doctors being so busy they cannot get adequate answers.

Medical progress changes rapidly. Todays new breakthrough treatment can become an unexpectedly risky treatment tomorrow. Information comes out quickly, sometimes even before its been thoroughly thought out. The best examples are news stories about medical research on television. While these news stories are well-intentioned, they frequently confuse, scare, or misinform patients and families because the details aren’t explained. More specifically they don’t explain to whom the research does and does not apply. After three minutes on television many patients are left more confused and frightened.

The Internet, while an extraordinary medium for information exchange, also represents a potential risk for misinformation. There tends to be a reporting bias for bad outcomes and rare events in medicine. A great example is the cardiac pacemaker. While hundreds of thousands of patients have received them with over 95% doing very well without complications, some patients do experience them. Unfortunately, these frequently unavoidable complications, are most likely be found in chat rooms, blogs, and other web sites. Again, the result is a scared bewildered patient who is not likely to get a balanced education about a pacemaker.

We created MD_Knowledge to provide thoughtful analysis of medical news stories without overwhelming “doctor-talk” or overly technical medical-speak. Our hope is to help patients improve their understanding of medical care and communication with friends, family, and their healthcare providers. To that end, MD_Knowledge is not trying to uproot your relationship with your healthcare provider; we hope to supplement it. Please do not change any treatment or medications without talking to your physician or other provider first.