HOW YOUR DOCTOR DECIDES WHAT TREATMENT TO RECOMMEND AND WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
I think many people believe that the ‘experts’ weigh up such a balance on their behalf. You might imagine that the treatment your practitioner recommends is based on a careful assessment, considering all aspects of each possible treatment as well as your personal, social and psychological situation and needs. That is far from the truth. Below I describe how most practitioners really decide what treatment is best. Firstly, they consider only the sorts of treatment they themselves believe in. What they believe in is determined by their training and personal attitudes.
What I have said so far you probably recognise to be true, not because it agrees with what you have been taught but because it agrees with your own experience. If so, you may have already realised that the ‘best’ treatment in the eyes of the doctor is often not the best treatment in the eyes of the person with cancer. Unfortunately, doctors rarely allow patients to come to their own conclusions as to the best treatment. They don’t offer alternatives, they don’t give basic information, often they don’t even justify their own treatment advice. Basically most doctors treat people with cancer like dependent children.
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