Many participants questioned patient ability to understand technical information about devices, and said that patients generally wanted physicians to make such decisions. A few acknowledged that this view may be regarded as paternalistic, but emphasized that physicians must be trusted by patients to make decisions in their behalf. At a certain point it becomes absurd. Are we gonna have to discuss what suture material we use? And why we're using that vendor? The average person is not interested. It's just too heavy for them to grasp. Maybe I'm very paternalistic. I don't think I am. An overarching policy of detailed descriptions of different technologies and why we might use one over the other—I'm really not sure that it's relevant. (21CTM)Newspapers assume that people can read a grade 5 or 6 level. I think that the general population, to be quite frank, is not smart enough to engage in that discussion. Physicians quite frankly don't have the time to educate people, even in the basics that they would have to know. That sounds really paternalistic, and I should probably apologize for that, but I just can't see that as being workable. That is one of those areas where providers have to make decisions on behalf of their patients, and the patients have to trust their providers to make those decisions in good faith. (06OTM)