It’s not a good feeling when you cannot do too much for your patient as a doctor. That’s how I felt when I walked into the room to see Valerie for the first time. She was in her 60’s. She was flanked by her two adult granddaughters, w…
Category: Oncology/Hematology
The building blocks of a cancer risk management strategy
According to data gathered by the American Cancer Society (ACS), more than 1.9 million new cancers are projected to be diagnosed in 2022. In addition, missed cancer screenings due to the pandemic are expected to potentially increase the number of cance…
Not a cancer survivor or previvor, but a cancer preventer [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. “I know how different my experience is. I am not facing potentially debilitating treatment(s) or the fear of death. Still, I am experiencing a physical transformation, a redefining of my feminine self, yet I d…
Not a cancer survivor, not a cancer previvor: Am I a cancer preventer?
I recently had a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with an esthetic flat closure (no reconstruction). My decision took months of questions, discussion and reflection. My journey began during the final four weeks of 2021. It included: four mammograms, f…
6 changes that could lower the risk of developing prostate cancer
After skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common type of cancer diagnosed in people with a prostate. Some risk factors associated with prostate cancer can’t be mitigated. Those factors include older age, a family history of prostate cancer, …
Making the decision each day to stay in clinical medicine
I have wanted to be a doctor for as long as I can remember. I played hospital with my dolls as a child. I never thought of alternative career paths. I climbed the long, sometimes unbearably steep mountain to reach the top. I loved clinic medicine for m…
Precision medicine: the rifle vs. shotgun approach to cancer treatment
Why does one person respond favorably to lung cancer treatment while another does not? The answer lies in their DNA. Just 20 years ago, lung cancer was broadly categorized into two groups: non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and small cell lung cancer (…
A difficult conversation with my mother’s oncologist
The silence felt heavy on the other end of the phone line. I waited a few seconds, and it dawned on me: He wasn’t ready. This moment, each in our own worlds was a defining point in our journey. Twenty seconds earlier, I had just shared the follow…
Mothers and sweaters: the gifts of letting go
I sifted through both cars, my own and my husband’s, underneath our boys’ baseball equipment, candy wrappers, and empty water bottles. The felt bag was nowhere to be found. I was finally ready to take this bag of a dozen sweaters, some of which were my…
Prostate cancer, sex drive, male menopause and conversations to have with your doctor
Americans are having less sex than ever before. Should we be worried? Ask your prostate. A 2022 study from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior found that the rate of all types of sexual intercourse have declined from 2009 to 2018. While t…
