Are You Prepared for Your Breast Cancer Appointment? Expert Tips.

Are You Prepared for Your Breast Cancer Appointment? Expert Tips. from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Could you be better prepared for your breast cancer appointment? Breast cancer specialist, Dr. Lisa Flaum reviews helpful tools that can help ensure patients get the most out of their doctor visit.

Dr. Lisa Flaum is a Medical Oncologist at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. Learn more here.

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Transcript:

Dr. Flaum:                  

I think they should think ahead of time about what issues are most important to them, have a list of questions, whatever they might be. And hopefully, our job, if we’re doing it well, is to answer the questions that the patients don’t even necessarily know to ask. So, I think that the important thing is not so much a specific question, but getting your questions answered, sort of walking out of that initial visit at least with a preliminary understanding of what your diagnosis is, what the implications are, what the decision making is regarding treatment. And understanding why your doctor is choosing the treatment that they’re choosing or recommending and what your alternatives are.

And I think knowing what the balance is. So, not just, okay, you’re choosing this because you think it’s most effective, but then how do you balance it with quality of life, with side effects, and with all the other variables that go into that choice. Patients have different perspectives in terms of how much information they want, in terms of the bigger picture. Do people want information about prognosis? Is that even answerable at an initial visit? So, a lot of it differs in terms of what the patient’s desires are and where you are in the workup to know how best to answer those as well.

The other thing I would say about preparation for a visit is, it’s important to have someone with you, either in-person or remotely given the circumstances. So, an initial visit with a medical oncologist can be overwhelming and having a second set of ears and eyes and someone to take notes so you can listen, is really helpful. Because often patients walk out of that visit forgetting everything that was said, or at least not comprehending all of it immediately. So, always having another set of ears or eyes listening is really important.