Participatory Medicine is a cooperative model of health care that encourages and expects active involvement by all connected parties (health care professionals, patients, caregivers, etc.)

When patients are aware of such things as their weight, BMI, blood pressure, recent key laboratory results, and so on, and when they come to the office motivated and prepared, outcomes are likely to be much better. The patient who passively waits for advice and direction from the physician is more likely to forget instructions, make excuses for failures, lack the discipline to lose the needed weight or stay on the required diet, and so forth.

Patients themselves, not their doctors, must be the ones to make the essential decisions about their health. They must be able to obtain the necessary information to make key decisions, then act on them.