Choosing the right doctor

If you are facing a diagnosis of breast cancer, then you need to be your own best advocate in choosing a doctor - or even better - a team of doctors and medical providers to treat you, and your unique cancer.

Remember that your cancer isn’t going to be exactly like anybody else’s. Not your neighbor, or even a family member. It’s unique to you, both clinically and psychologically. That’s why this is a decision you must make for yourself. Taking this first step is, perhaps the most critical step toward being a cancer survivor.

Knowing what I know now, I would never have chosen a doctor based on: “that’s who everybody in town goes to” or “that’s the only one my insurance plan covers”.

Interview a couple of doctors and find out which ones communicate the best, take all of your needs into account, are willing to spend all the time you need to answer all of your questions fully and in language you understand.

You don’t need a doctor who comes across as your intellectual superior. This isn’t a contest to see who is smartest. You don’t need a doctor that is in a hurry. You don’t need a doctor who does gall bladders one day and breast surgery the next. You want somebody with a breast cancer track record that suggest a high rate of successful outcomes.

And you should ask about his or her outcomes, do they track their patients and see how things worked out. There are far too many busy practices where follow-up simply does not happen and these doctors can’t possibly know if what they’re doing is working or not.

Finally, ask about all the doctors and medical providers that you may need over the course of your cancer treatment - an oncologist to direct the whole plan of action, a radiologist, a surgeon, a plastic surgeon ( doesn’t have to be the same person, and probably is best if it isn’t since these are different sub-specialties ), a physical therapist, a geneticist?

Find recommendations for each and interview them - ask if they know one another and have any reservations about working together. This essentially gives you a multi-disciplinary approach, considered to be the gold standard in cancer care when you live in a place where a multi-disciplinary cancer center is unavailable or you simply can’t travel to one.

Take away: be your own advocate. Question and interview. Don’t take the first offering, especially if it is an emotional choice rather than a reasoned and thoughtfully considered choice.

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