No hurry, it's just cancer.

[Trunk]

Hey thinksnow

Is it possible that your folks are a little high-maintenance? This has passed through your parent’s filter AND your filter, and your folks still sound a little bit “pain-in-the-assy” to me and that’s probably exactly the type of folks that they find are more likely to file a suit. have your parents ever sued anyone over anything?

@thinksnow

A week or so ago they find out that the doctor they had been consulting with is not yet Board Certified for the surgery, but his associate is, so they ask if he can perform the operation. “Sure,” they said, “would you like to meet with him?” My parents, figuring they had already gotten the low-down from the first guy, didn’t really see a need to talk to the second guy, which I guess he was insulted by.

They don’t want to meet with a guy who is going to perform cancer surgery on your dad? I had my knee operated on and I met with my the guy about 4 times before the surgery. Or did they just not want to have to go back to the hospital again, or what? This doesn’t sound like the whole story.

Sometimes, I think a doctor tells a patient something and some patients want to question, question, question, find out every single possible aspect as if the doctor is there for “Cancer 101” class. So your dad is “informed” – what’s he doing, going in and having “back-and-forths” with a guy who went to medical school for 8 years?

In every line of business there are customers who you just finally say “this guy ain’t worth dealin’ with”. Now, if this doctor has a long history of turning people away, that’s one thing, but if it’s your dad that has a history of being turned away, it might be time for a little introspection.

[kung_fu_lola]

@Trunk

Sometimes, I think a doctor tells a patient something and some patients want to question, question, question, find out every single possible aspect as if the doctor is there for “Cancer 101” class. So your dad is “informed” – what’s he doing, going in and having “back-and-forths” with a guy who went to medical school for 8 years?

If someone is about to be cut open by a virtual stranger while unconscious in order to treat a potentially fatal disease, I think they have a right to ask as many damn questions as they need to in order to feel ok about the procedure. You only get one body.

Besides, since they are in the U.S., they are paying for the doctor’s time. I don’t see anything wrong with taking up more time if they are willing to pay more.

[Trunk]

My pop’s a pharmacist. He gets the occasional “informed” person come in who is aware of every possible side effect of a medication they’re prescribed.

Will I get shortness of breath?

Well, that happened in 2 out of 10000 test cases - not significantly different than a placebo.

Will I feel dizzy?

A small few experience light headedness when they stand up quickly. Just be careful.

Will I have dryness of the mouth?

Effects were no different than a placebo.

yadda yadda yadda

And EVERY medication has a list of effects like that.

You know, there’s informed and then there’s pain-in-the-ass.

A doctor and a pharmacist are probably bound to go over all of that with you but that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to a Q&A session. At some point, you gotta defer to the man in the white coat.

For some reason, I doubt a doctor dropped a patient just because he asked a lot of questions. Does that sound reasonable to anyone?

[matt_mcl]

No, actually that doesn’t sound reasonable, which would be exactly why the OP is complaining about it.

And if I have questions about a procedure for something as important and grave as cancer, I want the doctor to sit through every damn one of them and answer them to the best of his or her knowledge, and with complete courtesy for as long as I’m courteous too. S/he’s being paid for this; I’m sitting there in an ass-revealing gown.

My mother is a family physician and she knows perfectly well that a major part of a patient’s physical well-being and aptitude for good response to treatment is his or her comfort with the procedure. I’m sure she’d much rather have a patient that asks every question imaginable than a patient who is completely misinformed about and disengaged from the treatment.

[alice_in_wonderland]

@Trunk

A doctor and a pharmacist are probably bound to go over all of that with you but that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to a Q&A session.

Actually, give the amount of $$ a person in the US is going to have to shell out for a robotic cancer surgery, I think they’re fully entitled to a Q&A session. Hell, I think the surgeon should bake them a freekin’ cake, givin how much they’re paying.

Some patients are inquisitive and probably a pain in the ass - so what - as far as I’m concerned, it’s part of the job of surgeon.

[CrankyAsAnOldMan]

Doctors have egos and nerves and paranoia too, and it’s just awful when it works against you or you somehow, unwittingly, set one of these things off. I am so sorry it happened to your parents.

Trunk’s question has some validity (although I’m not keen on the way he’s putting it) but, that said, I don’t see how a doctor who has barely met your parents could determine whether or not they are high maintenance, litigous, crazy, or just scared, concerned, and well-read. I think he jumped the gun and I think the less of him for it.

At any rate, what a happy thing that they’re rid of this person. I suspect your father will be better off out of his care–certainly from an emotional standpoint, but possibly also medically.

If it’s U-M where they end up, thinksnow, you’ve know got a place to stay if you come up, and someone local to look out for them when you or your sister can’t be here.

Trunk, one more comment. I used to think like you–I tried to be well-informed but I was passive about questioning my doctors. Hey, they went to med school, I didn’t. But you know, that changes when my friend’s infant daughter was hospitalized for a hemingioma (like a strawberry birthmark) in her throat. She was at my U’s hospital, really tops in the country for many things. They did a bunch of tests and recommended a tracheotomy, which she’d have for at least two years. She’d never be able to enter a regular daycare. Everyone in the family would need special training to care for her, as would any babysitter. They would need a night nurse in their home. Postoperative infections were pretty much guaranteed. It was an awful solution but it was the accepted protocol.

I cried to hear it. My friend did too, for about an hour, and then she hit the internet. Imagine, a girl with just a college education using the internet instead of accepting what several highly-trained doctors at a hospital ranked tops in the country said to do. She found out about an experimental but promising lasering procedure being developed just 40 miles away, which could be done instead. She called the doctor who did it, talked to her doctors here who had no position on it, then checked the baby out of the hospital and had it done. The child leads a normal life and is one of the cases that advanced medical knowledge about the benefits of the procedure. All because some dumb mom questioned her doctors. I’ve since been a little more proactive about talking things over with my own doctor, and have found he welcomes it and I get better care.

[Miller]

@Trunk

A doctor and a pharmacist are probably bound to go over all of that with you but that doesn’t mean you’re entitled to a Q&A session. At some point, you gotta defer to the man in the white coat.

For some reason, I doubt a doctor dropped a patient just because he asked a lot of questions. Does that sound reasonable to anyone?

I tend to think the person with the fatal illness ought to get all the deferment in that particular relationship.

“You’re a doctor? Well, I’m dying. Spare me the attitude and answer my questions, and be quick about it, or else. It ain’t exactly like I’ve got a lot to lose, over here.”

[thinksnow]

I appreciate your comments, Trunk, and I was wondering the same thing, if maybe my dad just nagged on and on about something, then I remembered that my father doesn’t actually nag or harp, so that doesn’t apply. Yes, he’s only been deeply researching the procedures since December as opposed to the doctor who has x number of years training, but he’s also the one feeling the discomfort he was asking about, and wondering if it was related. I don’t think asking about a pain/discomfort/irregularity in the same general area of your body where you have cancer is too much of a burden.

He got his cat scan/mri whatever back yesterday and there are no signs that it has spread to his pelvis, that it is still within his prostate (I guess they can tell this?) So that has helped ease his mind over the bowel issue.

Today they are meeting the third doctor, who run a completely different clinic, dealing only in this robotic procedure, who has more operations completed than both of the other guys combined, so that’s something.

Interesting notes, though- both of my parents say they have been hearing and reading about the malpractice business in Florida and say that it is HUGE. Coming from Ohio, where you might hear about something once in a while, they say now that they are lookign for it, they see and hear news of suits everywhere and can understand doctors reluctance to take anything but perfect candidates. It’s still crap, though, and my father has an idea in his head that he is labeled like Elaine from Seinfield and every doctor that gets his chart is going to see “Difficult patient” stamped in there because he bothered to ask this one jackass questions.

He did ask about the Ohio State stuff, though, as well as the Michigan clinic. I guess the place they are at right now has minimal internet connectivity so they haven’t been able to check out the links.
Oh, and as far as not feeling they needed to meet with the other doctor, they had been consulting with his partner and had exhaustively gone over the procedure. Meeting with the other guy was nothing but a formality. As far as he was concerned, he was getting the procedure, regardless of physician, and if it was a different doctor in the same clinic, then their standards should be the same and the only difference is the height of the guy behind the mask in the operating room. They are only a few miles from the place, so it’s not an issue of travel him, it’s an issue of “why?”

[BeerFan]

ThinkSnow I read your thread the other day and I wanted to comment but due to circumstances I’m just now gettin around to it. Anyway, I wanted to point out that if your parents are in Ocala that the University of Florida is a short 30 minute drive north where the Shands Teaching Hospital is located. Lots of good things get done there. In addition the Moffitt (?sp) Cancer Center at the University of South Florida is probably an hour or so south of them in Tampa. Medical care in Florida is definitely hit or miss but there are good places to go. My Mom was treated at Moffitt (sp?) for one of her cancers and they did a really good job, sadly she had too many problems for the treatment to really help but the overall experience was very good. Tell them to check around outside of Ocala. I don’t mean to demean Ocala but it is basically a podunk town in North Central Florida, not exactly a hot bed of top notch Oncologists. Good Luck.

BeerFan