Excuse Me Doctor, Let Me Explain What I Need.

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago: Lab Rat?
Sam Hutchison has cancer. His father is seeking a cure beyond the edge of medicine. The article talks about people who are doing their own research and finding their own receipes to cure cancer. It begs the question... do you need a medical degree to do research and make treatment decisions? With so much information now widely available and doctors having limited time to spend on each patient, is it possible that people who can devote several hours a day to investigating their own treatments might be able to come up with better solutions even than doctors that specialize? One of the interesting things about this article was the fact that the parent of a patient or a patient can make the decision to use untested drugs in combination whereas would a doctor be capable of taking such a risk?

Will all this new information that's available to patients with the time and the energy to the do the research open up a new type of doctor? Ten years from now will the be facilitator specialists. Will there be doctors who ask you to do research on your own problem and then help you treat yourself based on that research? And what about the people who don't have the time or the knowledge to do their own research? Will there be a new profession outside the medical profession. A personal research assistent? And will medical schools have to add a new class: How do you learn from your patient?