<i>The group began with head and neck cancer, treatment of which turned out to involve 160 processes requiring measurement. To assess outcomes, it asked patients which they thought were most important. Head and neck cancer patients wanted to be able to talk and to swallow. (Survival, which many doctors had thought was a top priority, was not something patients raised; many assumed they would survive.)</i><p>That parenthetical note is perhaps the clearest illustration I&#x27;ve ever seen in my life on the communication and expectation gap between experts and non-experts.