The Doctor Still Knows Best. How Medical Culture Is Still Marked by Paternlism

This book seeks to answer the question: how can medical culture continue to be marked by paternalism, despite the concentrated efforts of the medical community to put doctor and patient on a more equal footing? The recent emphasis in medicine has been on shared decision-making, physician truth-telling and creating a patient-centred medical culture. The author discovered that in practice, medicine tells a very different story. Since she entered the world of medicine twenty years ago, seeking treatment for infertility through IVF and then seeking treatment for her disabled son to the present day, Janet Farrell Leontiou has continually encountered a medical culture in which she is not treated as an equal. As a professor of communication, the author has an ear for language and is able to deconstruct the ways in which communication choices create a patriarchal medical culture. Dr Farrell Leontiou also understands that no communication can create culture without its participation. Therefore, she encourages the reader to understand how we can support and recreate a culture that does not serve our interests.