Way back in 1847, the American Medical Association panel on ethics decreed that “the patient should obey the physician.”
There may very well be physicians today – in the era of empowered patients and patient-centred care and those darned Medical Googlers – who glance nostalgically backwards at those good old days.
Let’s consider, for example, the simple clinical interaction of prescribing medication. If you reliably take the daily meds that your doctor has prescribed for your high blood pressure, you’ll feel fine. But if you stop taking your medication, you’ll still feel fine. At least, until you suffer a stroke or heart attack or any number of consequences that have been linked to untreated hypertension.
Those who do obediently take their meds are what doctors call “compliant”. And, oh. Have I mentioned how much many patients like me hate that word?
Thus, a circle that began with me sitting in a 2008 training audience was completed as I became one of the presenters onstage in front of an audience of cardiologists at a Mayo medical conference on women’s heart disease. (Thank you Drs. Hayes, Mulvagh and Gulati for your persistent invitations!) But long before I took the stage last weekend, I’d been invited to come to Rochester a day earlier to meet with some pretty amazing Mayo staff. 
I think I’ve seen just about every “healthy lifestyle” informational brochure out there. You’ve seen them, too: Eat better! Lose Weight! Quit Smoking! Get More Exercise! BlahBlahBlah! None that I’ve found so far, however, mention anything that we don’t already know. Behaviour change is notoriously challenging – otherwise we’d all be doing it already. It seems to me that the issue is not so much about raising awareness of something that isn’t well understood (Really? Smoking is bad for
For the freshly-diagnosed heart patient, the immediate and sudden change from “being well” to “recovering” cuts directly to the core of self-concept and self-esteem, according to 
Heart Sisters 