Category: Oncology/Hematology

The one word that carries so much weight in the cancer experience

The patient was well over 6 feet tall and looked like he had recently lost weight. When he took off his winter coat and hung it over the back of the chair, I could see his scapulae like wings under his sweater. He folded himself into the chair and care…

A patient who taught an important lesson in doctoring

As a doctor, there is an experience that all can relate to. It concerns that particular patient who comes in with not just one concern, but a litany of them. They require more than the prescribed 15 minutes of visit time, and we sit and listen, try our…

Both physicians and patients need to stop viewing technological tools as threats

A recent study published in Science, one of the world’s leading academic journals, found that a predictive health care algorithm discriminated against black patients. The tool, created by Optum, was designed to identify high-risk patients with untreate…

The intern who knows everything

What seems like a tidal wave of pages washes over you. Drowning in a torrential sea of order clarification, bowel regimens, and vital sign deviations — you struggle to stay afloat. Medical school did not prepare you for this. Patients and nurses are ca…

A physician’s inaccurate cancer prognosis

Mr. G* was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer two years ago and has been on a succession of medications to control a progressive cancer. His PSA never nadired after surgery, and adjuvant radiation only increased his urinary problems. Androgen depr…

Speaking to cancer as if it were a person

I’d known Ellis for years — he once hired me for a social work job. Yet when I think of Ellis Ledger, I remember him best the night I encountered him outside of his apartment building. I was out late walking my dog. Ellis stopped to talk. He clea…

The hidden benefits of your health insurance plan can save your life

At kitchen tables everywhere, ordinary Americans have been grappling with the arcane language of deductibles and co-pays as they’ve struggled to select a health insurance plan during open enrollment season. Unfortunately, critical information that coul…

Let’s stop trying to change what doctors do

Our organization, like most health care providers, is working hard to improve the care we provide to our patients, while also striving to improve the lives of our physicians. All too often, a narrow view of the former can create conflict with the latte…

How predictive analytics help advance population health

Take 100 patients who are candidates for colorectal screening. We know that a group of them will try to avoid the procedure or postpone it for as long as possible. Evidence of this, for example, would be rescheduling appointments multiple times to late…

The indignity of a cancer that takes away bowel functions

I first became John Dolan’s social worker following his colon surgery, surgery for removal of a very large cancerous tumor, the largest the experienced surgeon said he had ever seen.  John was told he had about three months to live. So much for predict…