What patients want to know about their prognosis

Patient
March 30, 2017

Everyone immersed in the culture of medicine knows that physicians sometimes defer the discussion about prognosis to patients who are battling a life-threatening illness.  Everyone, that is, except the patient.   We arrive on your doorstep believing that our presence indicates the obvious.  So, how are we to know that we have to ask for something as life altering and important as a prognosis?  Deferring to the patient for prognostic discussion …

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What patients want to know about their prognosis

To my fellow school of medicine graduates: Give it to them straight

Patient
May 23, 2016

I would have graduated from medical school this year.  That’s right.  Just like you, I’d be getting ready to move to another city and take up residence at an academic medical center to begin my clinical training. Things don’t always work out the way we planned: like Lenny and George in Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men.  Sometimes, the best-laid plans have a way of going awry no matter how carefully we prepare them.

Cancer.  I wasn’t worried. It was …

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To my fellow school of medicine graduates: Give it to them straight