“you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”
― Stephen King, On Writing
THE BOND BETWEEN PATIENT AND PHYSICIAN IS TIGHT
The ability to care for patients with metastatic cancer so that they can continue to function in their daily lives takes great clinical skill and is as much an art as a science. Research techniques such as genomic profiling of cancer will eventually enable oncologists to select “the right treatment for the right cancer.” But nothing will replace good old-fashioned doctoring, the ability to sense and know when a treatment is or is not helping.
Patients with metastatic cancers see their oncologists often. Frequent communication enables physicians to get to know their patients, to know when they have a bounce to their step and feel well or if they appear to have lost a step and are ill (or depressed). As in the case I described earlier of Patrick the painter, I know whenever he says that he is not painting that either the cancer is getting worse or the treatment is getting the better of him. Either way, something different needs to be done.
Many patients put up a good front in the presence of their oncologists. They do so mainly out of fear that an admission of sickness might indicate that the cancer is growing but also to avoid appearing “weak”; they want to prove that they can “take it.” Because even the most sensitive physician is not a mind reader, if you are a patient, I encourage you to be honest and direct with your oncologist about how you are feeling so that you can receive the treatments most helpful to your situation.
