A shortage of oncologists

how about “palliative chemo” for esophageal cancer, advanced lung cancer, etc.?

what are they palliating exactly when someone has less than 6 mos to live? perhaps their wallets.

“Why do they nail the lid on coffins? To prevent the oncologist from giving the last dose of chemotherapy” ha ha.

“The study was commissioned by ASCO, a professional organization for cancer doctors, and published in its Journal of Oncology Practice. “

that’s objective. that’s like pfizer producing studies touting the utility of viagra for women (oh wait, didn’t that happen?)

Anon 6:59 “By the way happy, just because a patient has a diagnosis of cancer doesn’t mean it time to throw them in a box.”

Agreed – sorry for the implication.

I have seen plenty of patients recover miraculously with leukemia & lymphoma during my short stint as a heme-onc fellow. I wish I could say the same for those with sarcomas & carcinomas.
The box joke i thought was funny, though admittedly kinda perverse.

As an oncologist, can you comment on how much chemo is given largely for financial gain? i guess it’s impossible to study, but i’d think you can identify (even secretly to yourself) other oncologists who you think give unnecessary chemo. I wonder if this’ll change as health insurers cut back on allowing the marked-up resale of chemo drugs.

This was happening left and right a few years ago – the pharma reps (especially Amgen) would take fellows & attendings out to like the fanciest restaurants in NY, and sponsor trips etc., basically openly ignoring regulations against such things.

I never understood the practice of oncs buyiung chemo drugs and reselling it to the patients.

This practice should be illegal. Chemo drugs should be sold directly by the pharma companies and paid for by insurance, not oncologists.

why in the world would this kind of setup exist? I can think of only one reason: making the oncologists rich.

I guess you guys have not followed medicare’s banning of markup’s on chemo drugs by oncologists. This is not new news guys. The fact is part ot the markup was due to the simple fact that medicare DID NOT pay for chemo nursing. Which I can assure you is very expensive. Know the issue before pontificating.