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Hi Alan Your message struck a chord with me, as I also still need to get out my Christmas cards (but my excuse is that I sometimes wait till after New Years so that I can reply to all the cards I get!). Your comments about the medical profession are important. It takes awhile after being out in medical practice to realize that we don't know everything, and that we are not always right. I think that one of the most important parts of maturing as a doctor is to learn to live with this uncertainty, since when we start practice we have the expectation that we will know everything, and that we will always be right, and also the expectation that our patients will think that as well. Doctors have a high suicide and drug abuse rate, and I think that having to live with uncertainty leads to a lot of this. Looking after patients with diseases like Parkinson's Disease teaches us a lot. There is uncertainty in everything we know about this disease, and everything we do to try to control it without making people worse. It helps everyone (your doctor, the person with Parkinsons, their caregivers, their other family and friends) to develop an alliance so that there is good communication. Most doctors would rather have this type of relationship than the althernatives. However, it does make more work for us (we have to keep up to try to know at least the same amount as patients!), and its hard to admit that you might be wrong about something (people do react differently to things, and just because something is very unlikely to happen, doesn't mean that it won't). I would like to think that most doctors are open to the information that their patients provide, and if they don't know about the information directly, will find out what the basis of the information is. The word misinformation means various things to various people. To a scientist working in a research centre, if you can't prove "it" with a double blind crossover study, or if "it" hasn't been proven, then "It" can't be trusted. To someone working directly with PD patients, if "it" works better than the harm it may be doing, "it" is worth using unless most "experts" are pretty sure its snake oil (something likely innocuous the sale of which is giving someone exorbitant amounts of money). For someone selling some substance or service for PD, there is always some bias towards profit, no matter what they may profess, and subjective claims that are made should always be evaluated with that in mind. For PD patients, like my father, and their caregivers, like my mother, if "it" seems to work who cares what the cost is and lets hope that it doesn't have any short or long term side effects. It helps me to remember these various viewpoints when I tell someone that they've been misinformed, or when someone tells me that I'm misinformed. In the end, it always comes down to us as individuals (no matter what our previous education or experience) to try to be as educated about things as we can, to filter and weigh all this information, and to decide for ourselves wheth information is "right" or "wrong", or useful to us or not likely to be useful. Doctors give advice, but it is up to each person to decide for themselves what to do with that advice. There are however some people who have a lot of anxiety, and have great difficulty living with uncertainty, who need their doctors to play the God role, who don't wish to learn for themselves, and feel better with someone else doing it for them. Again I think it is a matter of experience for doctors to be able to interact with people according to the person's personality and needs, and not the doctor's own. Experience is a great teacher, and that's why I find this list so helpful, and I think that most doctors will also.People shouldn't be afraid to talk to their doctor about their expectations, and about their knowledge. You can always find another doctor if the relationship doesn't work out, but there of course won't be another person quite like you! The other problem for the doctor is time, how to find the time that each patient or care giver needs or wants. Again good communication and knowledge helps to use time in an efficient manner. Anyway, enough rambling at the end of the year. Hope you and yours have a happy healthy new year! Brian Symonds B.Sc. M.Sc. M.D. <[log in to unmask]>