What Is a Cancer Metastasis?

A metastasis refers to a lump of cancer cells that’s physically separated from the original tumor. A metastasis can be local, like when colon cancer spreads to a nearby lymph node in the gut, or distant, as when lung cancer cells generate tumors in the adrenal gland, liver, bone or brain. Sometimes metastases cause serious […]

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About Those Skipped Heart Test Results

Harlem Hospital Center stands just three miles or so north of my home. I know the place from the outside glancing in, as you might upon exiting from the subway station just paces from its open doors. The structure seems like one chamber of its neighborhood’s heart; within a few long blocks’ radii you’ll find rhythms generated in the Abyssinian Baptist Church; readings at the Schomburg Center and artery-clogging cuisine at the West 135th Street IHOP.

So I was saddened to hear about the missed heart studies. Or should I say unmissed? No one noticed when nearly 4,000 cardiac tests went unchecked at the Harlem center,

Posted in Cardiology, Communication, health care costs, health care delivery, Ideas, Life in NYC, Medical News, Patient Autonomy, Under the RadarTagged , , , , , , , 2 Comments on About Those Skipped Heart Test Results

Uncertainty Rules (on Eyjafjallajokull, volatility and a patient’s prognosis)

As pretty much anyone traveling in Europe this week can tell you, it’s sometimes hard to know what will happen next. Volcanologists – the people most expert in this sort of matter – simply can’t predict what the spitfire at Eyjafjallajokull will do next.

It comes down to this: the volcano’s eruption could get better or it could get worse…

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When ‘No’ Turns Positive in Medical Care and Education

The medical word of the month is a most definite “no.”

The word is featured, explicitly and/or conceptually, in recent opinions published in two of the world’s most established media platforms – the New York Times and the New England Journal of Medicine. Their combined message relates to a point I’ve made here and elsewhere, that if doctors would or could take the time to provide full and unbiased information to their patients, people might choose less care of their own good sense and free will.

Let’s start with David Leonhardt’s April 7 column, “In Medicine, The Power of No.” In this excellent essay…

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Ten Ways to Better Our Health

(in the Style of a Magazine Cover)

If patients knew more:

1. they’d understand more of what doctors say;

2. they’d ask better questions;

3. they’d be more autonomous;

4. they’d make better decisions (ones they’re comfortable with, long-term);

5. they’d spend less money on care they don’t want or need.

If doctors knew more…

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9 + 1 Ways to Reduce Health Care Costs

Recently in the Times’ “Patient Money” column, Lesley Alderman shared nine physicians’ views on how we might reduce our country’s health care mega-bill.

Here, I’ll review those comments, add my two cents to each, and then offer my suggestion (#10, last but not least!) regarding how I think we might reduce health medical costs in North America without compromising the quality of care doctors might provide.

The “answers” from…

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A Small Study Offers Insight On Breast Cancer Patients’ Capacity and Eagerness to Participate in Medical Decisions

Last week the journal Cancer published a small but noteworthy report on women’s experiences with a relatively new breast cancer decision tool called Oncotype DX. This lab-based technology, which has not received FDA approval, takes a piece of a woman’s tumor and, by measuring expression of 21 genes within, estimates the likelihood, or risk, that her tumor will recur.

As things stand, women who receive a breast cancer diagnosis face difficult decisions…

Posted in Breast Cancer, cancer survival, Communication, Diagnosis, Empowered Patient, Informed Consent, Oncology (cancer), Pathology, Patient Autonomy, Patient-Doctor Relationship, Statistics, Under the RadarTagged , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments on A Small Study Offers Insight On Breast Cancer Patients’ Capacity and Eagerness to Participate in Medical Decisions

Today’s Press on Targeted Therapy for Cancer

Today the NY Times printed the third part of Amy Harmon’s excellent feature on the ups and downs and promise of some clinical trials for cancer. The focus is on a new drug, PLX4032, some people with melanoma who chose to try this experimental agent, and the oncologists who prescribed it to them.

What I like about this story is that, besides offering some insight on the drug itself, it balances the patients’ and doctors’ perspectives; it explains why some people might elect to take a new medication in an early-stage clinical trial and why some physicians push for these protocols because they think it’s best for their patients.

And it provides a window into the world of academic medicine, where doctors’ collaborate among themselves and sometimes with corporations.

Here’s some of what I learned:

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Health Care Costs, Communication and Informed Choices

For those of you who’ve been asleep for the past year: the health care costs conundrum remains unsolved. Our annual medical bills run in the neighborhood of $2.4 trillion and that number’s heading up. Reform, even in its watered-down, reddened form, has stalled.

Despite so much unending review of medical expenses – attributed variously to an unfit, aging population, expensive new cancer drugs, innovative procedures, insurance companies and big Pharma – there’s been surprisingly little consideration for patients’ preferences. What’s missing is a solid discussion of the type and extent of treatments people would want if they were sufficiently informed of their medical options and circumstances.

Maybe, if doctors would ask their adult patients how much care they really want, the price of health care would go down. That’s because many patients would choose less, at least in the way of technology, than their doctors prescribe. And more care.

What I’m talking about is the opposite of rationing. It’s about choosing.

Posted in cancer treatment, Communication, Empowered Patient, health care costs, Informed Consent, Medical Ethics, Patient AutonomyTagged , , , , , , , , 1 Comment on Health Care Costs, Communication and Informed Choices

Henrietta’s Cells Speak

“One of the ways that I gained the trust of the family is that I gave them information.” (R. Skloot, a journalist, speaking about her interactions with Henrietta Lacks’ family, Columbia University, 2/2/10)

Posted in Books, Communication, Essential Lessons, Ideas, Informed Consent, Life as a Patient, Medical Education, Medical Ethics, Oncology (cancer), Patient Autonomy, Patient-Doctor Relationship, Privacy, Reviews, Science, Women's HealthTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment on Henrietta’s Cells Speak

Are Doctors Necessary?

Ten years ago, my colleagues and I squirmed in our swivel chairs when a few tech-savvy patients filed in bearing reams of articles they’d discovered, downloaded and printed for our perusal.

Some of us accepted these informational “gifts” warily, half-curious about what was out there and half-loathing the prospect of more reading. Quite a few complained about the changing informational dynamic between patients and their physicians, threatened by a perceived and perhaps real loss of control.

How a decade can make a difference. In 2008 over 140 million Americans…

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How to Avoid Death in the ICU

It was sometime in April, 1988. I was putting a line in an old man with end-stage kidney disease, cancer (maybe), heart failure, bacteria in his blood and no consciousness. Prince was on the radio, loud, by his bedside. If you could call it that – the uncomfortable, curtained compartment didn’t seem like a good place for resting.

Posted in cancer treatment, Communication, Empowered Patient, Essential Lessons, health care costs, Life as a Doctor, Medical Ethics, Palliative Care, Patient Autonomy, Patient-Doctor RelationshipTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments on How to Avoid Death in the ICU

Moms Tweet About Blood and Cancer

This afternoon I found a Tweet from a colleague, a journalist who happens to be a mom in my community:

Tweet from SuSaw:
“RT @JenSinger: Hey, baby. What’s your blood type? Nothing against the Big Pink Machine… http://ow.ly/URkg

As a trained hematologist (blood doc), oncologist and breast cancer survivor, I couldn’t resist checking this out. Here’s what I discovered…

Posted in Communication, Future of Medicine, Health IT, Hematology (blood), Social Media, Women's HealthTagged , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment on Moms Tweet About Blood and Cancer

Skyping Medicine

Yesterday, Dr. Pauline Chen reported in the New York Times on virtual visits, a little-used approach for providing care to patients hundreds or thousands of miles apart from their physicians.

Telemedicine depends on satellite technology and data transfer. It’s a theoretical and possibly real health benefit of the World Wide Web, that giant, not-new-anymore health resource that’s transforming medicine in more ways than we know.

Posted in Communication, Diagnosis, Future of Medicine, Health IT, Patient-Doctor RelationshipTagged , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment on Skyping Medicine

Why Medical Lessons?

One of the things I liked best about practicing medicine is that I was constantly learning.

Making rounds at seven in the morning on an oncology floor would be a chore if you didn’t get to examine and think and figure out what’s happening to a man with leukemia whose platelets are dangerously low, or whose lymphoma is responding to treatment but can’t take anymore medicine because of an intense, burn-like rash. You’d have to look stuff up, sort among clues

Posted in Communication, from the author, Ideas, Life, Life as a Doctor, Life as a Patient, Medical Education, Medical Ethics, Patient-Doctor RelationshipTagged , , , , , , , , 1 Comment on Why Medical Lessons?

How Well Do You Really Want to Know the “Red Devil?”

I know what it’s like to get the “red devil” in the veins.

You can learn about Adriamycin, a name brand chemotherapy, on WebMD. Or, if you prefer, you can check on doxorubicin, the generic term, using MedlinePlus, a comprehensive and relatively reliable public venture put forth by the National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. If you’re into organic chemistry, you might want to review the structure of 14-hydroxydaunomycin, an antibiotic and cancer therapy first described 40 years ago…

Posted in Breast Cancer, cancer treatment, Essential Lessons, Life as a Doctor, Life as a Patient, Medical Education, Oncology (cancer), Women's HealthTagged , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments on How Well Do You Really Want to Know the “Red Devil?”

Dinner with my Family

Family gatherings centered on two things – food, and talk about medicine. We spoke of interesting cases (always nameless), challenging conditions and, even back then, the constraints of health care costs. My fiancé, now husband of over 20 years, couldn’t get over how debate over health care dominated our Rosh Hashanah and Thanksgiving feasts…

…when I learned I had breast cancer, I knew exactly what to do. The decisions, though difficult, were almost straightforward, buttressed by my knowledge and familiarity with the language of medicine…

Posted in Communication, Empowered Patient, Life as a Doctor, Life as a Patient, Medical Education, Patient-Doctor RelationshipTagged , , , , , 5 Comments on Dinner with my Family

Hello Readers!

Well, I went ahead and started this blog without a proper introduction. Why was I in such a hurry?

Because I think the media’s getting – and giving – the wrong message on breast cancer screening. When it comes to long, boring medical publications like those published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, perhaps it’s not the devil that’s in the details so much as are the facts.

More on that tomorrow –

Posted in cancer survival, Communication, from the authorTagged , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment on Hello Readers!
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