The author of numerous studies, he urged patients to question their physicians and expressed concern about cancer treatment for older adults.
Dr. Sheldon Greenfield, whose pioneering research found that older patients with breast and pancreatic cancer got subpar treatment and that patients who grill their doctors during consultations receive better care, died on Feb. 26 at his home in Newport Beach, Calif. He was 86.
The cause was colon cancer, his daughter Lauren Greenfield said.
Dr. Greenfield was a founder and director of the Center for Health Policy Research at the University of California, Irvine, and a leader of the Medical Outcomes Study, involving more than 22,000 patients and 500 physicians, which determined in 1986 that doctors often ordered exorbitant and unnecessary tests and referred patients to a specialist when a primary care doctor or a nurse practitioner could have delivered equally good care.
Alan M. Garber, the president of Harvard University, praised Dr. Greenfield as “a towering figure in health care research.”
“His influence extended more widely than even he could have known, through the Medical Outcomes Study and so much else,” Dr. Garber said in an email.
In 1991, Dr. Greenfield and collaborators including his wife, Dr. Sherrie Kaplan, found that too many conversations about care are dominated by doctors. They recommended a protocol that included a 20-minute coaching session for patients before they consulted their physicians.
“When doctors dominate the medical interview, patients don’t do as well as when the patient exerts more control,” Dr. Greenfield told The New York Times that year.