The Oncologist is the person you are trusting your life to for the foreseeable future. I think trust is IMPERATIVE! I will not name the doctor I saw, but I will saw it was my first and last visit. She was fired before she was completely hired.
My husband and I both had questions and she didn’t come across as secure in her own answers. She said like and um a lot and keep staring at the ceiling.
She was a bit young and English was her second language so maybe she just needs more time. However, I need to fell complete trust and comfort in the person in control of my cancer treatment and I am not getting this from her.
The biggest questions asked were:
If I do the lumpectomy, what is the percentage rate of recurrence and the treatment required. The response given was she wasn’t positive on the percentage but thinks it was less than 30% (that’s not what I was hoping for). Treatment would be lump removal via surgery, followed by 4 weeks heal time, then 4 weeks of radiation, another 4 weeks heal time, then 4 weeks of chemo, again 4 weeks heal time, then 8 weeks of chemo. To me that’s an awful lot of treatment.
If I have the full mastectomy what is the percentage rate of recurrence and the treatment required. She said the mastectomy would decrease my recurrence by about 10%. She told me the treatment would be full removal of my left breast, dissection of my sentinel lymph nodes to be positive there was no cancer there and then the same radiation and chemo as with the lumpectomy.
This made no sense to me. What are you radiating if its removed. It contradicted everything I had been told so far. I told her I was not sure what I wanted to do yet. Could she give me printouts on the medications she was talking about and let me go home to think it over. She said sure. I was already thinking about a second opinion. MY husband was livid. She ignored most any questions he had asked.
Oncologist: An oncologist is a doctor that specializes in the treatment of all types of cancers.
Breast Cancer Life 