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Category: end of life care

Being Human: The Preexisting Condition of Disease

As a medical oncologist of almost 20 years, I’ve seen my share of patient-blaming stigma. People are indicted for their cancers in various ways: “They ate too much sugar.” “They were obese.” “They were a smoker.” “It runs in their family.” I find the current culture of attributing severe COVID-19 illness and deaths to “preexisting conditions”…

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A Tale of Two Patients: Female Body Image and Cancer Treatment

How body image and unhealthy societal ideals affect women undergoing cancer treatment “I want to stop this treatment.” These are not the words I’m expecting to hear from my patient. She has advanced stage IV cancer, and the third-line endocrine (antihormonal) therapy I recommended a few months ago is working. The imaging shows a significant…

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Ten Wishes From a Rural Oncologist

update 11/2020: recipient of an Honorable Mention Award in the 2020 Writer’s Digest Writing Competition (print/online article category)! My patient is middle-aged, morbidly obese, with undiagnosed (until now) alcoholic cirrhosis, and a vaguely documented history of cardiac disease—per the chart “noncompliant” with medications. “Noncompliant” in this case turns out to mean he had no insurance…

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