It is a widespread problem in healthcare that the objectives of such care are simply presumed or considered evident. When seeking health care, patients are rarely asked about their particular and potentially unique care expectations. And for good reason: Medical science can function only if the objectives of medical care are limited in number and identical for large populations. Thus, even if patients are actively engaged in the clinical decision making process, their expressed preferences have to be reinterpreted to match these general and limited categories. Personalized medicine claims to be both scientific and patient-specific. Moreover, by empowering patients, the latter can create the values guiding their own care – or so personalized medicine advertizes itself. In this short course, we will first review the challenges of orienting scientifically grounded medicine towards the unique needs of individual patients. We will discuss the commonly invoked solution to this challenge, that is, the introduction of the principle of respect for patient autonomy, and show it to fall short. In the second half, we will review the promise of personalized medicine to overcome these challenges. We will examine exactly what is meant with “personalized”? What understanding of personhood or personalization is operative? We will then examine the contention that personalized medicine can effectively empower patients to take charge of their own well-ness maintenance and health care, thereby ensuring value-based care.

At the completion of this short course, attendees will be better prepared to:

• Explain why the goals of medical practice tend to be defined in generally applicable terms as opposed to being patient specific.
• Critically discuss the extent to which the ethical principle of respect for patient autonomy is an effective solution to the aforementioned problem.
• Explain and assess in what way personalized medicine is personalized and effectively empowers patients.