CommunitiesMental Health and MindfulnessAre other cancer survivors struggling with unsupportive care teams?

Are other cancer survivors struggling with unsupportive care teams?

DS

Community Member

2 hours ago

I have questions for cancer survivors who are a year or more post-diagnosis—questions about your “Care Team”: Do they listen to you? Do they respond helpfully? Do they seem to understand your perspective and experiences as a person with cancer? I ask because—as a high-risk, localized prostate cancer patient who is 3 years post-diagnosis and 2 years post-initial treatment—my answers are “no,” “no,” and “no.” My Care Team is more like a Don’t Care Team. They seem not to even try to empathize. Perhaps understandable, as they have their own demands and pressures. But they also seem unknowing or unaccepting of recent clinical trial and research findings, instead clinging to discredited traditional beliefs or anecdotal evidence. And they are ALWAYS pro-treatment or, I should say, overtreatment, as one study found 46% uncalled for procedures. And I’m not referring to 3 or 4 providers in a single location, but to at least 20 degreed professionals, including 9 M.D.’s., in the metro regions of Billings, MT, and Denver (and I now have a PCP and a urologist who are definite keepers). So … have I just been unlucky with providers? Or is your experience similar to mine?

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