Patient education: Scare or care?

Call me old fashioned, but when a clinical authority hands me a brochure with the title, "What to Expect", I tend to believe what it says.

That's what was so scary about this patient brochure: it shocked me into expecting a terrifying experience.

I'm not heading into a hip surgery, thankfully.  But if I were, I would want to get the detail view of the implant around page 12, and only then after I had been assured that this surgery took into account my whole being, not just my hip.

What happens when we zoom out and expect care for the heart, head and whole person?  Can we leave caring for "pieces and parts" behind?