The flipside of that is that patients might bias doctor's decision away from what was a good decision in the first place. I've had many American doctors be somewhat apologetic when they recommended no treatment, or a less invasive treatment. My response was that if they didn't recommend a treatment then I didn't want it either. There are real risks from any treatment.
The only time I ignored advice was when I went to a doctor for a cough, and because I mentioned chest pain (from coughing), they decided to get an EKG, which showed some abnormality. Apparently this abnormality is not uncommon in healthy people. They recommended more tests with a specialist, but I figured that a not uncommon result on a test, when doing that test wasn't justified by my original symptoms, didn't amount to enough evidence to go any further.