Svetlana Nikic, Founder of Precision Oncology Consulting, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Imagine this.
You are accompanying someone, a former cancer patient, in remission but now with bad-looking new lesions, let’s say in the mouth.
The doctor already informed the patient that “This isn’t looking good”. The doctor is still waiting for the results of the biopsy to make the actual diagnosis. The patient is in a lot of pain and has come back to otornhio – emergency to get pain killers.
The doctor says to the accompanying person that “maybe what he has is eating it all from the inside” (!!??) (a well educated person would most likely say that if it is a tumor, it might be infiltrating the surrounding tissue..) This is not imaginary scenario but rather a real one, that I have lived today while accompanying someone.
I went mad! I am still mad!
I said in a lower voice and touched doctor’s hand gently (so that patient doesn’t hear me) “ you can’t say it like that! First of you, you don’t have the results so that you can make a diagnosis and secondly you simply can’t use those words”. Luckily the patient did not overhear this.
I am stunned….disappointed, angry. I’m preparing an official complaint…and would like to know if I’m exaggerating? What would you do in my situation?”
Read more posts featuring Svetlana Nikic on OncoDaily.