Modern medicine; modern consumerism

If there is any one thing that is missing in today's health care delivery system, it is consumerism. This will be remedied as more and more Americans start taking direct responsibility for how their health care dollars are spent. Hand in hand with such developments will be increasing opportunities for developers and sellers of health-related products and services to promote their wares directly to medical consumers, who will either buy them outright or influence their healthplans to make the purchases. Purveyors of new technology and capital medical equipment will be especially likely to abet the new medical consumers and to derive financial benefits from them. From the perspectives of the many medical consumers who inquire to AMC about access to and use of radiologic services, the areas of greatest interest include high resolution ultrasonography, routine and functional magnetic resonance imaging, interventional radiology, gamma-knife surgery, and tumor-specific and patient-specific radiotherapy. Brain tumor and prostate cancer patients and their caregivers are particularly likely to be concerned about the radiotherapy modalities available.