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What Patients Don’t Always Share with their Doctors
Bob Riter
bob@ibca.net
At a recent breast cancer symposium at Cayuga Medical Center, a panel of physicians
responded to questions about cancer diagnosis and treatment.
The question I found most interesting was this, “Are there things that patients
don’t share with you that you wish they did?”
One physician had depression at the top of her list because it’s so common after a cancer diagnosis and because effective treatments are available.
This is supported by a Lance Armstrong Foundation survey of more than 1,000 people living with cancer in the United States. Seventy percent reported that they had to deal with depression as a result of their cancer. That’s not a misprint. Nearly 3 out of 4 people with cancer reported experiencing depression at some point in time.
The survey also found that 78% of the people who reported depression did NOT seek assistance for that depression.
It’s ironic that people are increasingly comfortable sharing their cancer diagnosis with others, but still hesitate to share the fact even with their own physicians -- that they’re depressed.
No one thinks that cancer is a sign of weakness. And no one should think that depression is sign of weakness either. It isn’t.
My hope is that doctors routinely ask patients about their emotional well-being on follow-up visits. Not only doctors involved in cancer treatment, but primary care doctors as well since they’re the ones most likely to see these patients on an on-going basis.
And I hope that patients are honest about how they feel and are receptive to receiving assistance if depression is present or a possibility. There are many resources and avenues of support available.
A second wish from physicians on the panel was for patients to inform them of all of their alternative or complementary treatments.
Significant numbers of cancer patients take herbs, supplements, acupuncture, and other treatments in an effort to feel better or to speed their recovery. Most alternative treatments don’t interact with conventional cancer treatment, but some can affect lab results or alter a body’s usual response to treatment.
Doctors in Ithaca are generally accustomed to patients who are interested in and who use alternative treatments. But please share these treatments with your doctors, especially when you’re about to undergo surgery, chemotherapy or radiation therapy. This knowledge helps them help you.
Finally, there was a request for patients to learn as much about their family medical history as possible. This can be tricky with cancer because we tend to lump all cancers together. You remember that Aunt Mary had cancer, but was it stomach cancer, ovarian cancer, or some other cancer? Diagnosing and treating cancer often require piecing together large amounts of information. The more blanks you can fill in, the better.
From the Ithaca Journal, October 25, 2006.
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