Your first visit to the Oncologists' office - part 1
Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 12:00 This is a very important video for a newly diagnosed cancer patient to watch - before considering any course of action or treatment.
In the case of breast cancer, too many women are sent directly to a surgeon. This wouldn’t be a bad thing necessarily, except that surgeons know how to do one thing best - operate. Surgery first isn’t always the best answer to any cancer. There are many new treatment modalities today that are best offered prior to surgery ( see the previous post about neo-adjuvant chemotherapy).
With most cases of cancer, the surgeon, radiologist, plastic surgeon and other medical professionals specific to cancer diagnosis and treatment will come into the play at some point. The beauty of working with an Oncologist from the beginning, is that you have a skilled cancer specialist who can orchestrate and design a holistic plan of attack that will treat your type and stage of cancer within what is called the Standard of Care recommended by the National Institutes of Health, the American Society of Clinical Oncology ( http://www.asco.org/ ) and others most knowledgeable in the field.