Shared Decision-Making as an Imperative of Modern Medicine?

Shared Decision-Making (SDM) is a normative model of decision-making in the clinical context, in which physicians and patients assess alternative treatment options and jointly take value-based decisions based on the preferences of patients. It is important that the exchange of information is free and uncoerced and that the advantages and disadvantages of different treatment options are carefully considered. The aim of this article is to reconstruct SDM historically and conceptually and to embed the model in a normative theory of patient autonomy. Furthermore. we define the scope of SDM in clinical practice by pointing to the limits of the SDM model. Our aim is to determine under what conditions patients and doctors take decisions together. what role doctors shall play, and when patients potentially participate too much or too little in the decision-making process.