Rerun: The Assertive Cancer Patient: Chooses the Right Doctor

I wrote this post almost two years ago, but I pulled it up to the top of my blog again because of the conversations we've been having about what to do if your doctor doesn't like you. Jeanne

If you are newly diagnosed with cancer, you will be faced with the daunting task of choosing a doctor or team of doctors to care for you. Now is the time to stop, take a deep breath, look around, and refuse to be rushed into a decision about treatment.

Some doctors will tell you on Tuesday that you have cancer, and expect you to have surgery on Thursday. This is rarely necessary from a medical point of view. For most cancers, you can certainly take a few weeks, or even as long as several months, to get a second opinion, consider your treatment options—which may include conventional medicine, alternative medicine, or a combination of the two—and choose a doctor.

Just because one doctor diagnosed your cancer does not mean you need to proceed with that doctor for treatment.

In this blog, I will offer some detailed suggestions on how to find the right doctor or doctors to treat the type of cancer you have, and also, perhaps even more important, how to find the right doctor for YOU. You want a doctor with the appropriate medical expertise, but you also want a doctor with whom you can build a relationship of mutual trust and respect.

Everyone has their own personal requirements for a doctor (although you may have not considered what you really need in a doctor until you have been diagnosed with cancer).

I chose my doctors very carefully when I was first diagnosed, and I was fortunate: I ended up with a great team of people who were everything I could have wanted or needed. Then, just a few months ago, I found out that my medical oncologist of eight years--the man who has kept me alive with metastatic disease in the face of rather poor odds--was moving to Arizona.

This news was right up there--with my initial diagnosis (in 1998) and the news that my cancer had spread to my bones (on New Year's Eve, 2001)--as one of the worst moments of my life.

And, despite all that I have learned from eight years of living with cancer, it was not easy to, yet again, find the right doctor for me. But I have, finally, and now I can relax and get back to the business of living my life.

See also:

The Assertive Cancer Patient: Gets a Second Opinion
(I am a huge believer in second opinions.)

There's Obnoxious, and There's Assertive

A note about the photo: You might be wondering what this photo of a rack of zori has to do with cancer. Well, it does, sort of. I took this photo while in Tucson to see Dr. Livingston, for my twice-a-year second opinion. I would not make the trip to Tucson to see him if I weren't an assertive cancer patient.

I used the photo to illustrate a post called The Tacky Tour of Tucson

@ Jeanne Sather 2008.

Comments

[Aristotelis]

I am a student of medicin and i am doing some research about sth that i could use some help.
My question is at what extend does a doctor allow a patient facing such a serious disease to choose between a treatment that benefits with life expectancy and research that limits life span but offers greater life quality?

with respect
Aristotelis Kontogiannis

[jeanne]

Wow. That's quite a question. My answer is that the doctor explains these two choices clearly to the patient and then the patient gets to choose. The time of doctors playing god like this is over. Over.

Jeanne

[Manon]

I am an outreach coordinator for the website icyou.com. There are thousands of cancer survivor videos on the site and many women talk about how they chose their doctors. I found it very interesting and I thought you might too. Thanks so much for your time. Here is a link to some of our videos. http://www.icyou.com/topics/cancer-survivors

[Manon]

I am an outreach coordinator for the website icyou.com. There are thousands of cancer survivor videos on the site and many women talk about how they chose their doctors. I found it very interesting and I thought you might too. Thanks so much for your time. Here is a link to some of our videos. http://www.icyou.com/topics/cancer-survivors