Oncology and hematology

2,498 articles · Since 2004

Articles, page 25

Why sometimes you need to be your family’s doctor

January 20, 2020Jan 20, 2020

My uncle died last year. As physicians, we are all too familiar with death. Even if we are practicing primary care, we are touched by death and the line between life and death. That patient who had what statistically should’ve been acid reflux, but who you found to have stomach cancer. That breastfeeding mom who thought a little lump was a clogged milk duct, when it actually turned out to …

Conditions and diseases

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

Anne Katz, RN, PhD

January 19, 2020Jan 19, 20202

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 carefully crossed his legs. He sighed softly as he arranged his …

Physician voices

A patient who taught an important lesson in doctoring

Don S. Dizon, MD

January 12, 2020Jan 12, 2020

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 best to console and guide. Yet, for some patients, it never seems …

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Health technology

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

Robert Pearl, MD

January 7, 2020Jan 7, 2020

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 untreated chronic diseases, thereby…

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 untreated chronic diseases, thereby helping administrators re-distribute medical resources to those who’d benefit the most. But there was a glitch in the algorithm, according to researchers. Rather than ranking the needs …

Conditions and diseases

The intern who knows everything

Jason Lizalek, MD

January 3, 2020Jan 3, 2020

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 calling you, “doctor,” you wish to return to that minimal responsibility role as a medical student.

Welcome to your first on-call weekend.

These first few days, weeks, and months …

Read more…

The intern who knows everything

Conditions and diseases

A physician’s inaccurate cancer prognosis

Anne Katz, RN, PhD

January 2, 2020Jan 2, 2020

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 deprivation therapy added to his symptoms, and he is now considering taking a second-generation androgen-receptor antagonist. Fortunately, his cancer has not …

Conditions and diseases

Speaking to cancer as if it were a person

Raymond Abbott

January 2, 2020Jan 2, 2020

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…

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 clearly was drunk, not falling-down-drunk (he never was), but feeling no pain, as they say, and he was upset about something important …

Health policy

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

Michael L. Millenson

January 1, 2020Jan 1, 20203

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 could literally spell the difference between…

Unfortunately, critical information that could literally spell the difference between life and death is conspicuously absent from the glossy brochures and eye-catching websites.

Which plan will arrange a consultation with top-tier oncologists if I’m diagnosed with a complex …

Physician voices

Let’s stop trying to change what doctors do

Ira Nash, MD

December 31, 2019Dec 31, 2019

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 latter. For example, a reductionist view of clinical quality, which equates good care with performance on a small number of “objective” measures like mammography rates and hemoglobin …

Physician voices

How predictive analytics help advance population health

Jay R. Zdunek, DO, MBA

December 12, 2019Dec 12, 20193

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…

We also know that among this 100 is another group of people who need a colonoscopy more than others. A family history of cancerous polyps is a …

Conditions and diseases

The indignity of a cancer that takes away bowel functions

Raymond Abbott

December 12, 2019Dec 12, 2019

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.…

To the chagrin of his very large Catholic family, he was one of thirteen children; he was all the time rejecting their …

Medical education

A letter to a cancer patient in palliative care

Alison Vasa

December 10, 2019Dec 10, 2019

I heard about you a few times before I ever met you in person. It was my first day on the palliative care service — a week that felt like a relaxing break from the sixteen-hour days I was used…

I heard about you a few times before I ever met you in person. It was my first day on the palliative care service — a week that felt like a relaxing break from the sixteen-hour days I was used to on surgery. Many people don’t know what palliative care is. But I suspect these days if you are still living that you know it well.

I first heard of you …

Conditions and diseases

Most new cancer treatments haven’t been proven to help patients live longer or feel better

Mary Chris Jaklevic

December 5, 2019Dec 5, 2019

Most new cancer treatments haven’t been proven to help patients live longer or feel better. Instead, they delay the growth of tumors — which may be faster to measure but doesn’t necessarily indicate a tangible benefit for patients. But you…

But you wouldn’t grasp that sobering fact from some recent news coverage:

A headline in the UK’s Telegraph about the drug olaparib (Lynparza) read: “Revolution’ in prostate cancer care as off-label

…

A brilliant song about the perils of texting and driving

Admin

November 25, 2019Nov 25, 2019

"Words Kill" is a brilliant song about the perils of texting and driving. Spread the message. Courtesy of The Fever Breakers, a band made up of hospital employees. Their socially conscious songs are crafted in the basement of the hospital…

“Words Kill” is a brilliant song about the perils of texting and driving. Spread the message.

Courtesy of The Fever Breakers, a band made up of hospital employees. Their socially conscious songs are crafted in the basement of the hospital using a piano used for cancer patient music therapy and subsequently recorded in a studio.

A brilliant song about the perils of texting and driving

Conditions and diseases

A diagnosis that creates an instant bond with others

Heather Thompson Buum, MD

November 19, 2019Nov 19, 2019

An excerpt from With Mirth and Laughter: Finding Joy in Medicine After Cancer. I am sitting in the waiting area for the one year follow up appointment with my oncologist, Dr. Anne Blaes. Using the handy phone app, “How Long…

An excerpt from With Mirth and Laughter: Finding Joy in Medicine After Cancer.

I am sitting in the waiting area for the one year follow up appointment with my oncologist, Dr. Anne Blaes. Using the handy phone app, “How Long Ago,” I see it’s been eleven months, nine days, five hours, twenty-nine minutes, eighteen seconds since I went through the operation that made me cancer-free. I read those numbers …

Conditions and diseases

Physician-assisted suicide is a collaborative process

Ton La, Jr., MD, JD

November 17, 2019Nov 17, 2019

Who remembers Jack Kevorkian, Doctor Death? He was found guilty in 1998 of second-degree murder. Still, it was because of his advocacy that the terminally ill patient's right to die by physician-assisted suicide was propelled into the public arena. And…

Who remembers Jack Kevorkian, Doctor Death? He was found guilty in 1998 of second-degree murder. Still, it was because of his advocacy that the terminally ill patient’s right to die by physician-assisted suicide was propelled into the public arena. And who can forget Brittany Maynard? It was her advocacy for physician-assisted suicide that reignited the debate on its legality in 2014 — …

Physician voices

A physician reflects on the worth of a decade

Ankita Sagar, MD, MPH

November 15, 2019Nov 15, 2019

At first, I thought the light was reflecting off the mirror. But no. There It was - my first gray hair. I did not expect to live to see the day. I was ecstatic! At six months old, I was…

At first, I thought the light was reflecting off the mirror. But no. There It was – my first gray hair. I did not expect to live to see the day. I was ecstatic! At six months old, I was diagnosed with a severe illness called thalassemia major and was incorrectly expecting to have passed by now. (Google told me so!) Yet, this year, I complete ten years beyond my …

Patient voices

Healing and heart when recovering from cancer

Pat Wetzel & Sherry-Ann Brown, MD, PhD

November 12, 2019Nov 12, 2019

As people, we often have multiple stories to tell, from different perspectives. Multiple stories and perspectives can be wed or braided together around the same themes. Here we braid together two separate perspectives of a patient author and a physician…

From both perspectives, this is a story about the power of care, cancer, and quality of life.

Following my cancer diagnosis of nodal marginal zone lymphoma, I struggled with my …

Conditions and diseases

What’s the X-factor in life or death medical situations?

Ethan Dmitrovsky, MD

November 11, 2019Nov 11, 2019

I was a brand-new intern in the intensive care unit, and Cassandra was the very first patient I saw there. A petite, slender woman, she was rolled in on a stretcher, accompanied by her tall, athletic husband, Jack. Cassandra was…

Cassandra was in her 20s, like me — but mortally ill. That grabbed my attention from the start. But the biggest lesson she taught me came about because we got her prognosis all …

Patient voices

Including the patient perspective on tumor boards

Don S. Dizon, MD

November 10, 2019Nov 10, 2019

I am a firm believer that medicine is best practiced as a team, with the one undergoing treatment at the center participating fully. It’s a belief embedded in the multidisciplinary care model. I have been fortunate to have been exposed to multidisciplinary clinics in my fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and have worked …

Oncology and hematology

Articles, page 25

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