TY - JOUR T1 - Expert patients? JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 405 LP - 405 VL - 54 IS - 502 AU - Mike Fitzpatrick Y1 - 2004/05/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/54/502/405.abstract N2 - ‘Doctors need to act on what they already know — that all patients are experts, however uninformed or misinformed they may be about health issues’.1THIS exhortation in a recent editorial in the BMJ is palpable nonsense. If doctors are obliged to defer to patients' expertise, then what is the point of their medical training? If patients are the real experts, then why should they bother to consult doctors?Yet this sort of celebration of personal convictions about health — right or wrong — over theoretical knowledge and professional expertise currently has a widespread resonance. It has the ring of the populist rhetoric favoured by the New Labour government in its concern to relate to the anxieties of the middle classes, while seeking to advance its ‘modernising’ agenda by disparaging traditional professions.It is not surprising to find that the authors play … ER -