whitecoatrants.wordpress.com: I do some tests on a patient. One test leads to more tests. It becomes pretty obvious that the patient has metastatic cancer. Hits all over the place: brains, bones, liver. She had a history of lung cancer in the past and thought she had it beat. She didn’t.

Even when I know it’s cancer and I know the prognosis isn’t very good, I still tell the patient that we have to do more tests to make sure we know what’s going on. Part of me doesn’t want to make the patient give up hope. Part of me wants to “ease” the patient into the diagnosis – give them time to accept it instead of just hitting them with a load of bricks all at once. Part of me just wants to pass the buck to the family doc who knows the patient a hell of a lot better than I do. [ read more ]