The movement for patient access to doctors' notes is growing

The OpenNotes initiative, which seeks to enable easier access for patients to doctor's notes, might have helped. The idea is that if doctor's notes were more transparent, then a patient would become more involved in their own treatment. And the "playing field" between doctor and patient also is leveled somewhat. "We doctors hide from patients what we feel about them and what we think, and I think that it is a mistake," said Tom Delbanco, professor of general medicine and primary care at Harvard Medical School. "There is absolutely no reason patients should not know what we are thinking about them and doing."