After receiving a diagnosis, Is it necessary to learn your prognosis to be a Healthy Survivor? The aswer depends on….
Read moreIncremental Care and Healthy Survivorship
Slow progress can sap patients’ hope. Atul Gawande is a surgeon-writer who offers a healing perspective
Read moreHow Do You Care for a Very Sick Bear?
How do help a child whose young friend or relative is seriously ill? American actress and comic Vanessa Bayer offers a comforting, empowering tool:
Read morePrior-Authorization Distress
Waiting for preauthorization may significantly delay starting your chosen course of treatment. That’s a disempowering and demoralizing delay for patients with active disease.
Read moreHope and Alternative Cancer Cures
Wow. “Nearly 4 of 10 Americans believe cancer can be cured solely through alternative therapies.” Here’s my response to clinicians.
Read moreWhen Your Illness Causes Pain
A searing pain of illness is the pain of seeing sadness or helplessness in the eyes of those who love you.
Read moreI Don't Want to Follow Doctor's Orders
We call them “doctors’ orders.” You know, “Take these pills” or “Wear this splint.” It’s a terrible term. I prefer “doctors’ recommendations.”
Read moreTips for Dealing with "Losing Things" All the Time
It’s disruptive and distressing to lose things all the time, whether from cancer-related cognitive deficits, dementia, overload with life stress, grief, or any other reason. Here are some tips to decrease the risk of losing things
Read moreDealing with Losing Things
The challenges of life after cancer may include “losing things” all the time. This is not the occasional losing things of healthy busy people, but a pervasive problem with losing things throughout the day, every day.
Losing things can be a big deal during and after an illness like cancer. Besides disrupting your day, losing things may…
Read moreWendy's Eagles Helping Others Find Hope in 2019
What’s the big deal about yet another cancer walk? To answer, let me take you back to 1993.
Read moreHealthy Survivors' Hope for a Miracle
Is “hope for a miracle” a healing hope? The answer begins….
Read moreIn Praise of Gentleness
Susan Gubar opens her latest post on the NYTimes Living With Cancer blog with “I’ve been lucky that most of my care is delivered with tenderness.” The “most” signals…
Read moreCancer Taught Me to Help Patients Find Healing Hope
AS AN INTERNIST, I strived to give patients hope by prescribing therapies that increased their chance—their hope—of the best outcome and by encouraging them with hopeful words. My own hope was to care for patients until I was old.
Read moreArmchair Quarterbacking Paul Allen's Treatments
Patients with no firsthand knowledge of Paul Allen’s medical situation are offering explanations of what likely happened. On one blog, a follow-up commenter wondered if Allen’s doctors had made a mistake.
Read moreJudging Patients' Decisions
Seems everyone’s an expert these days, which can add to patients’ distress.
Read moreSusan Sayles: Nurse-survivor inspires Healthy Survivorship
After being a nurse for 22 years and an oncology nurse for 12, Susan Sayles, MS, RN, OCN, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. Since completing her treatment, she’s been encouraging other breast cancer patients …
Read moreShould your doctor tell you if it might be cancer?
A physician's heart may be in the right place while reassuring a patient, "Don't worry. It'll be nothing." Unfortunately, trying to spare patients worry during evaluations can backfire. Patients who are reassured and then find out they have a serious illness may suffer from...
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