Expert Patient

“In addition, the cultural (and spatio-temporal) extension of medical knowledge and advice through globally available information sources heralds the arrival of the so-called ‘expert patient,’ as well as the procuring of medical advice and products by people outside the specific regulatory and ethical provisions found within any one country. The Internet fosters not only a ‘new medical pluralism’ (Cant and Sharma, 1999) but also what Giddens (1991) has called the ‘reskilling’ of lay people in their engagement with, definition and management of health and illness. Crucially, this ‘expert patient’ challenges the power of the physician (Hardey, 1999) and so his or her professional authority. . . . this whole process might be regarded as the socialization of clinical diagnosis” (Webster, 448).