Many cancer patients are dying, not because treatments are not available, but because the initial physician failed to offer the best possible treatment. Cancer is an unusual disease for many reasons – if you don’t treat it properly the first time, often there is no second chance because cancer grows geometrically. Continue reading “Multidisciplinary Second Opinion Centers”
Informed Decision
Every cancer patient is entitled to make an informed decision. While it sounds so simple, it is possibly one of the most difficult aspects in getting started in the right direction. Being told that nothing can be done, that surgery is required tomorrow or take these pills and come back in 90 days is not making an informed decision. Continue reading “Informed Decision”
Patient Responsibility
In discussing the idea of mandatory second opinions for newly diagnosed cancer patients (www.blastcancer.org) a cancer support organization came to the conclusion that the patient must be responsible for his/her own body in lieu of another Federal or state regulation. That’s only logical. If I don’t care that much about my life, why should anyone else? We all hate regulations Continue reading “Patient Responsibility”
Your Help is Needed to Help Others
Cancer is an extremely complicated disease. There are at least 8 totally different methods of treating cancer, many of which are given in combinations. It is a disease for which there is generally one chance of beating and if that one chance is not successful, often there is no second chance. That is because cells grow geometrically and become an untreatable size quickly as well as Continue reading “Your Help is Needed to Help Others”
Reducing Medical Errors in Cancer
On May 7, 2001 on ABC National News Peter Jennings stated, “In cancer, a second opinion should be more than just an option.” The following evening his report went in depth reviewing the study at Johns-Hopkins about the alarming figures of individuals treated with surgery or radiation for prostate cancer who did not have any cancer and that one in 5 cases of all cancers wrongly diagnosed Continue reading “Reducing Medical Errors in Cancer”