Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Questions cancer patients should ask

Questions Patients Should Ask
By JANE E. BRODY, Published: August 19, 2008

Patients armed with clear-cut facts are often able to make wiser choices about their care. Yet doctors are often reluctant to broach these matters.

In their review in The Journal of the American Medical Association of the role of chemotherapy at the end of life, Dr. Thomas J. Smith and Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Harrington listed these questions to ask — of professionals and of yourself — when considering chemotherapy that is unlikely to cure the cancer but may extend the length and quality of life.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Six Ways to Be a Better Patient

Six Ways to Be a Better Patient By Tara Parker-Pope, Published: August 12, 2008, NYT

To improve doctor-patient communication, patients need to follow a few rules of their own.

Last week, the Well blog featured “Six Rules Doctors Need to Know.” So what about patients?
Dr. Robert Lamberts, the August, Ga., physician who wrote the original rules in his blog, Musings of a Distractible Mind, says it was easy to criticize his own profession, but it’s tough to turn the spotlight on patients. That said, patients are half of the doctor-patient relationship, and they need a few rules of their own. Here are his six rules for patients.

...Any comment...

Books on Doctors as Patients and a few on the Doctor-Patient Relationship