On April 15, 2013, my kids and I were in Stamford, CT, visiting with my sister, Precy, and her family. I had been reading when an email came up, stating a bomb had gone off at the Boston Marathon. I immediately turned to Twitter where #BostonMarathon had already started trending.
There before me, gruesome details emerged, coupled with ...
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“Great,” I thought, as I stood at my desk, looking at my patient list early in the morning. She was coming in today. “She” was a patient of mine in her forties, with newly diagnosed triple-negative breast cancer, without nodal involvement. Our first meeting had been several months ago, and it had not been a good one.
I had asked about her ...
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As an oncologist who also runs a sexual health clinic for women treated (or under treatment), I am discovering that my perspective on both issues of cancer treatment (and survival) and life after cancer (and quality of life) is somewhat unique. I am conscious of how difficult it is to bring up cancer therapy and survivorship (let alone sexual health) within ...
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An email was waiting for me one morning from my wonderful nurse, Laura. "Very sad day," it said in the subject line. I opened the email quickly upon receiving it and read that one of my patients had died. This age-old dilemma again made me wonder what I should do: Should I call the family? Send an email or a card ...
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One of the toughest situations in oncology is the discussion about next steps, particularly when it comes to treatment of recurrent or metastatic disease. I believe very much that it is realistic to offer a patient the hope of cancer as a “chronic disease,” that treatment can result in disease stability, even though I cannot predict how chronic “chronic” is.
I was ...
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I only met her once; she was young—in her mid-thirties—and she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer during her pregnancy. Following chemotherapy and the delivery of a healthy baby, she underwent a hysterectomy and staging. She was ultimately diagnosed with a rare ovarian cancer: small cell carcinoma. She underwent postoperative chemotherapy and had gone into remission.
Unfortunately, it was short lived, ...
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On Friday morning I was seeing a patient, chatting about the holidays. She had given me a gingerbread house making kit for my kids -- which she had done annually since I had become her doctor.
"You are doing so well," I declared, "Have a very Merry Christmas!"
"You too!" she said as we hugged and she left the examination room.
At 12pm ...
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When I was 16 my dad had a heart attack. I still recall studying in my room when my mom came in to tell me he wasn’t feeling well. At the time, I was a volunteer in the emergency room at our local hospital, located in the tiny Pacific Island of Guam. I recall asking him what he was experiencing: ...
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“You look amazing!” It was the first thing out of my mouth upon seeing Sharon.* She is a woman in her mid-seventies, and she has recurrent ovarian cancer.
We had met after she was diagnosed with recurrence, only five months after the end of her “curative” treatment. At the time, we talked about her life—how she had been a nurse before ...
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As a member of the Integrated Media and Technology Committee of ASCO, I have tried to champion the benefits of social media, whether it be on blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, or otherwise. As I have become more engaged in various outlets, it has become apparent that these channels offer more than an opportunity to discuss the latest research and meet or ...
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-Eric Topol, MD, author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine
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Past 6 Months
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