If you ask older adults what per­son­al­ized med­i­cine means to them, they are likely to describe the fam­ily doc­tor who made house calls when their chil­dren were ill. They might also describe the doc­tor who per­son­ally cared for all mem­bers of the fam­ily, regard­less of age, know­ing all the per­sonal his­tory that con­tributed to the med­ical history.

Today’s per­son­al­ized med­i­cine com­bines genomics, infor­mat­ics, and high-​​tech imag­ing to diag­nose prob­lems more quickly and accu­rately or pre­vent them before they can occur. Drugs are selected that match each patient’s unique genetic infor­ma­tion, or mol­e­c­u­lar path­ways are mod­i­fied so that treat­ments are more effec­tive and have fewer side effects.

One of my job respon­si­bil­i­ties is to work in the minor­ity com­mu­nity to advance can­cer clin­i­cal trial aware­ness and par­tic­i­pa­tion. Last fall, I met with the pro­gram man­ager of a local pub­lic radio sta­tion to dis­cuss the most promis­ing devel­op­ments in health care that the radio audi­ence would ben­e­fit from hear­ing about. The goal was to iden­tify top­ics and poten­tial speak­ers for a health-​​related radio program.

I was enthu­si­as­ti­cally explain­ing about our per­son­al­ized med­i­cine ini­tia­tives in car­diac and can­cer care when the pro­gram man­ager asked how per­son­al­ized med­i­cine worked. I said, “By read­ing your genetic code, the doc­tor would know which drugs were most likely to work for you, and which you should avoid, even before you tried them. For patients with can­cer, ana­lyz­ing a piece taken from the tumor could pin­point the treat­ment most likely to kill the tumor, and with the fewest side effects.”

The pro­gram man­ager did not exhibit the kind of response I was hop­ing for, and I asked her what she was think­ing. Her reply sur­prised me. She said, “I am a lit­tle dis­ap­pointed to think that my care hasn’t always been per­sonal. I thought my doc­tor always knew what the best treat­ments for me were.”

I paused for a moment and then con­tin­ued. I told her she was right, that her doc­tor did know the best treat­ments for her based on the infor­ma­tion he had at the time. The mod­ern def­i­n­i­tion of per­son­al­ized med­i­cine now adds eas­ily avail­able genetic infor­ma­tion to the treat­ment deci­sion process.

The impli­ca­tion for me was to recon­sider how I think and talk about per­son­al­ized med­i­cine. Health­care providers are excited by the impli­ca­tions for genetic infor­ma­tion being read­ily avail­able for treat­ment deci­sions. Lay peo­ple have only the per­spec­tive of their health­care needs and expe­ri­ences with­out the ben­e­fit or bur­den of under­stand­ing sci­en­tific developments.