Episode 009: Why The Oncologist Is Your Guide Through Cancer
Apr 14, 2018•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast Episode description
In this episode, I'm talking to Bogda, medical oncologist who shares some great insights if you’re facing cancer right now, or if you’re building a life after cancer. Bogda breaks down what to expect when you’re talking to your oncologist, advice on dealing with stress, why oncologists are here to guide through the tough times as well as closing the loop with your general practitioner, as well as other specialists you might be dealing with. In this episode, we cover:
Dealing with cancer diagnosis
How to prepare for your oncologist visit
Why oncologists love informed patients
Multi-disciplinary care and how it can help you
Why oncologist is your guide and advisor through cancer
Resources that support you on your terms
When getting professional help to deal with cancer stress
Bogda's survivorship formula
Links
Finding My Way
Bogda's Academic Profile
Simplify Cancer First Visit Oncologist Checklist
Full Transcript
Joe: Bogda, thanks very much for taking the time to do this, I really appreciate it.
Bogda: Sure.
Joe: Bogda, as a medical oncologist, you often have to give people the bad news. How do you do that? How do you tell someone that they’ve got cancer?
Bogda: Sure. The first thing to say, Joe, is actually medical oncologists don’t do that very often because we don’t diagnose cancer. Very often surgeons do. We tend to be the second person who raises the question of cancer, or we might be the person who might see the patient after someone might have said, “This is very likely cancer and you will to see somebody to see the final diagnosis.” Many of our patients are prepared for the bad news when they see us. It’s not like we deal with issues in a completely unexpected scenario.
What we do quite a lot of is we might be the people who talk to the patients that the status of the cancer has changed. We might be seeing who we’re treating with the hope that we might cure the cancer and then it becomes apparent that the cancer is no longer curable and growing. We may need to tell that news and that’s often a very distressing scenario for all involved. How do you do that? The first thing to say is that you have to be honest about what you’re trying to tell, and you have to be accurate about your information. There’s no point talking about something where you really haven’t done your homework. You need to get your facts right.
You have to have all of your information available. There’s no point starting the conversation and then saying, “Actually, I’m still waiting for one extra test” because that is really distressing and confusing. What I tend to do is I tend to try to prepare patients that a difficult conversation is coming. I will say, “Look, we need to talk about such and such, is it okay if we talk about it now?” That gives a person the option to say, “I really don’t want to talk about it now, or I want somebody else to be with me when we’re talking, or I’m finding it really surprising.” To give themselves some room to deal with things, preparing and warning that something is coming is important.
Secondly, when I talk about what’s happening, I try to keep the language quite simple. Sometimes in oncology we tend to use very misleading terms, like growth, condition, diseases changing, and you don’t know what that really means. I think that if you’re really going to say something, try to keep it as accurate and as simple and as brief as you can. I think cancer is growing is pretty unambiguous, but things are not looking so good could mean anything. I think you need to be quite precise. I tend to move onto what can be done quite quickly. People are interested in not just what happens, but what can be done about it. That allows them to focus on something positive.
Usually, there is a lot that can be done. I try to tell what their situation is, identify what can be done and I finish off by trying t...
