The Relationship Is What Drives Decisions

In my specific role in healthcare, there is no better example of relationship-centered care than in the decision-making that both physician and patient face in dissecting the incomprehensible dilemmas of prostate cancer screening and prostate cancer treatments. In very few others cancers do we agonize about the key issues related to this very important health problem. The relationship is what drives decisions — and ultimately it is the physician whose main responsibility is to provide information in a compassionate and objective fashion to the patient so the “relationship” can arrive at the most appropriate and “correct” answer. In the case of prostate cancer, physicians may decide not to offer screening in the first place, making the discussion regarding next steps in the screened patient that much more problematic. The issue underlying the dilemma is the finding that, despite hundreds of thousands of patients who have been enrolled in randomized screening studies for early detection of prostate cancer, there is woefully little data that those individuals who are screened, diagnosed with and treated for prostate cancer as a result of a PSA test actually do any better than their colleagues who have never been tested in the first place. It is easy to say, “Don’t be tested,” but the patient wants to know if there is cancer in his body and what can be done about it. When faced with caring for a patient who is dealing with these issues, I ...
Source: Society for Participatory Medicine - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Newsletter empowered patient learning exchange participatory medicine prostrate cancer screening relationship centered care Source Type: news