Medical Facts versus Value Judgments — Toward Preference-Sensitive Guidelines — NEJM

 Perspective: NEJM (open access) + readers' comments

......  Good decision making requires familiarity with decision-relevant facts and recognition of the values relevant to weighing the pros and cons of the alternatives. If physicians or medical societies — in presenting treatment alternatives to patients or developing guidelines laying out the standard of care — fail to recognize when they have gone beyond the medical facts to make value judgments, they will harm patients by taking viable choices away from them.