Coming up on 13 years in and I have had many oncologists over my treatment. I started out with Dr. Reznick for the first two years here in Colorado Springs and then switched to Dr. Young as Dr. Reznick moved to another practice. Dr. Young did a wonderful job over the next years, guiding treatment and taking advice from other experts around the country and worked in partnership with them and me in my treatment.
There is where I wanted to take this post. All medicine should never be a one way street between you and the doctor. You should never go to the doctor and accept everything he says as the gospel handed down from on high. Doctors know so much but they are indeed limited in their knowledge.
Medicine should be a partnership between you and those treating you. You need to take what the doctor has told you and use that information as the start of your treatment. The doctor will miss things and you need to participate in your treatment so that you are fully aware of what is being done for you and with you.
I have several cases of mistakes over my 13 years of treatment. Prior to my first diagnosis, the physician's assistant (PA) got hung up on irritable bowel disease and did not pay attention to some of the symptoms such as early evacuation of meals and loss of weight. My first oncologist stated that he felt I was cured of this disease after 1.5 years of treatment when all the literature states that metastatic carcinoid cancer is not curable.
I have had other PA's not pay attention to the type of bacteria for an infection and prescribe a ineffective antibiotic and I have had doctors prescribe medicines that were counter indicated for some of my other problems. We have so much information at our fingertips that we can now search and make ourselves knowledgeable prior, during, and after treatment.
The downside to this information is that it can scare us, causing misleading information to confuse and mislead us and I do this all the time. The recent partial collapse of my right lung and the bloody pleural eflusion caused me to go into a panic and visions of an early death. Is this something to worry about? Certainly but I need to relax and combine the information that my doctors give me along with the information that I am able to glean from the literature.
Your doctor is your expert. He should be the one that sets you on a path. You need to ensure that the path is something you understand, something you agree with, and something you support. When you bring your car in for repairs, the mechanic there is the expert and you work with him to determine what is the proper treatment. You body is no different other than being a bit more precious.
Listen, learn, understand, and live.
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