Questions to Ask About Your Prostate Cancer Treatment Plan
Questions to Ask About Your Prostate Cancer Treatment Plan from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
What questions should prostate cancer patients ask about treatment options? Expert Dr. Rana McKay reviews the benefits of shared decision-making and shares key questions to ask about treatment plans.
Dr. Rana McKay is an associate clinical professor of medicine at Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health. Learn more about Dr. McKay.
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Transcript:
Katherine:
Speaking of sharing, shared decision-making has become the gold standard, really, for encouraging a successful relationship between a patient and their healthcare team. What does shared decision mean to you as a provider?
Dr. McKay:
Yeah. I think shared decision is an open dialogue. I think it’s an open dialogue with the physician, with the patient, sometimes, often times, the patient’s caregivers, and families, and loved ones may be involved in that process, where we’re talking about, first off, establishing the goals. Well, what are the goals? And I think, when we start with the goals then, we can say, “Okay. Well, what are the things that we can do to achieve those goals?” And I think sometimes we just dive right into, “Well, what are we going to do with the next step?”
So, I think establishing what the goals of therapy are the things that matter to any individual patient and their family is important. And then, from there, working on, “Okay. Well, aligning with those goals, these are the different things that you can do. These are the pros and cons of the different things that you could do,” and making an informed decision about the next step.
Katherine:
What questions should a patient ask about potential treatment options?
Dr. McKay:
One, what are the different treatment options? You know, sometimes I think that statement doesn’t get said enough. What are the standard of care options? What are the clinical trial options? Ask are there radiation therapies, surgical options? That may be a relevant question for some individuals, some individuals, not.
Being very open like, “Okay, I’m hesitant about chemo. Let me explore that.” Well, where does that hesitancy stem from? What’s the fear about chemo? Are there chemotherapy-sparing options right now? Or how can we kind of dispel the fear or myth around chemotherapy?
So, I think these are the questions that I think a patient can ask. How is a therapy administered? Where do I go? How would I receive different therapies are given at different modes of administration? I think those are good questions. Who do I call if something happens to me on the weekend or on a holiday? Who do I reach out to? What are the phone numbers? Give me all the phone numbers. Get them in my phone. Save them in there, so you know, who to reach out to if you ever need something, if you ever need assistance.
