ABSTRACT
Despite continued debate about the definition, shared decision-making can be viewed as a process of communication between those who are collaboratively engaged in making decisions about healthcare issues. That much everyone agrees on. Implementation remains challenging, partly because of power and knowledge asymmetries. Perhaps a solution to this intractable countercultural problem is to set a lower-level goal of requiring clinicians to always consider context, to understand a person’s priorities, lifeworld, and challenges when determinations are needed. To consider context, deeply, would be to share the prerequisites of a good decision, whoever makes it.
