Show R Y 1 t 1 I FROM I it tt if II 1 ONE i t tf 1 V. V f Hy By Marie t L. L Godfrey I Diagnosis 1 h. h cancer Most people who go to a doctor with one of the seven warning signals of cancer find that they were unnecessarily unnecessarily un un- necessarily concerned Naturally their relief is great But what happens to the person who does have c cancer Should the physician say You have cancer In the past and all too often orten today the common practice was to not tell the patient This meant that the physician had to deliberately mislead the patient often orten causing greater emotional difficulty difficulty dif dif dif- than a direct diagnosis of cancer might have given In health human beings are often pessimists and tend to imagine the worst especially when the doctor recommends further tests and trea treatment Even now when doctors are forced to give a diagnosis they often use the word malignancy rather than cancer The Patient Knows Dr Arthur Holleb Senior Vice President for Medical Affairs of the American Cancer Society is part of a growing number of physicians that feel that most patients should know when the diagnosis is cancer He states Many studies have shown that most patients understand when their diagnosis is cancer although this knowledge may remain unspoken between patient and physician If a poor prognosis must be verbalized then it must be done with hope and confidence with the right words proper timing and attitude Sometimes it is wise to give the report to the patient and family simultaneously telling only as much as can be un un- un One must individualize Certainly som some patients should never be told those thos with vilh hers iS' iS ct ld i i o ng nH a or very infrequently when the family after repeated evaluations is adamantly against informing the pa patient tient Predicting Life Ilfe Span Inevitably patient or family will ask How long do I have to live On this point Dr Holleb continues Perhaps the grea greatest test mistake a physician can make is to predict a patients patient's life span Yet we still hear the six months to live Physicians would like to think we walk hand in hand with God We dont Our predictions are too often proved wrong and many patients who are given a term short-term prognosis have outlived their doctors by many years The honest factual prognosis should be given in as hopeful a manner as possible We should all remember that over 1 11 14 million people who at one time were diagnosed as cancer patients are alive today A diagnosis of cancer is NOT a death sentence and it should not be given as such |