Finding Your Care Team
- Choosing the right doctor for endometrial cancer treatment is a pivotal step. It can influence your comfort and confidence throughout the process.
- A specialist who is experienced in treating endometrial cancer can offer the most up-to-date and effective treatment options.
- When choosing a specialist, patients should feel encouraged to speak up about what concerns them — that may include asking a doctor about their experience treating your particular disease or seeking a second opinion.
- A second opinion gives you the chance to explore other therapeutic options. Another doctor may offer a new perspective, and possibly recommend treatments that are different than what the first doctor you saw suggested.
Choosing the right doctor for endometrial cancer treatment is a pivotal step in your cancer journey. It can influence not only the care you receive but also your comfort and confidence throughout treatment.
The Importance of Choosing the Right Doctor
Read More- Look for Experience and Specialization: Ensure that your doctor specializes in gynecologic oncology and has experience treating endometrial cancer.
- Consider the Treatment Approach: Different doctors might recommend different treatment approaches. It’s important to find someone whose approach aligns with your preferences and needs.
- Check Hospital Affiliations: The hospital where your doctor practices should have the necessary facilities and support for endometrial cancer care. High-volume centers often have better outcomes.
- Seek Second Opinions: Don’t hesitate to seek a second opinion. This can provide more information and help you feel more confident in your healthcare decisions.
- Find a Healthcare Provider Who Works With Your Insurance: As the relationships between insurers and healthcare providers evolve, it’s essential to confirm that your doctor accepts your insurance. Health insurance dynamics change frequently—practitioners who accepted insurance from one company this year may switch to another next year. To avoid out-of-pocket expenses, ensure that the healthcare providers you consider are covered under your insurance plan.
Finding the Right Surgeon
Surgery can be a major component of your treatment for endometrial cancer, so it’s crucial to choose the surgeon that’s right for you. But how exactly do you make such a crucial decision? Remember, there is no offensive question to ask your doctor about your care. Patients should feel empowered to inquire about everything from the surgeon’s educational background to their experience level. Ask where they graduated, how many procedures similar to yours they have performed, and what their patient outcomes have been.Understanding their approach to surgery, including any innovative techniques they use, can also help you gauge how comfortable you feel with them handling your care. A good surgeon will welcome your questions and be open to discussing their qualifications and your treatment options.
“One of the ways that a patient can get more information about a surgeon’s competence or experience with uterine cancer is to ask them about their training in regards to uterine cancer,” Dr. Bobbie J. Rimel, a gynecologic oncologist at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, tells SurvivorNet.
“One of the important steps in training to be a uterine cancer specialist surgeon is a gynecologic oncology fellowship, and it is completely appropriate to ask your surgeon, did you do a fellowship in gynecologic oncology? If so, where did you do it? How long ago did you graduate?” adds Dr Rimel.
She also explained that there is a board certification in gynecologic oncology so seeking a board certified gynecologic oncologist will ensure that your surgeon has had the appropriate training.
There are several questions you should not be afraid to ask your doctor:
- How Many Surgeries Do You Perform Every Year?
There are certain advantages to having a high volume of endometrial procedures. In general, centers that treat more patients are more likely to have the latest technology for treatments, and surgeons with more experience will be more comfortable with your operation.
- Do You Get Paid Individually for Each Surgery?
Some hospitals may incentivize surgeries. That means that surgeons will get paid more for doing more operations. This may not always be in your best interest.
- What’s Your Complication Rate?
Ideally, you want someone who’s done a high volume of surgeries but has a minimal amount of complications.
Your Doctor Has to Understand You
While your doctor has undergone years of training and practice, she or he is ultimately still human and may come with their own set of biases that can impact how they treat patients. To combat these biases and really the most out of your interactions with your doctor, you should provide her or him with plenty of information about your life and ask plenty of questions when things aren’t clear. To better understand how you should approach conversations with your doctor, we spoke to Dr. Dana Chase, gynecologic oncologist at UCLA.
“We have certain beliefs that we don’t know about. We might look, for example, at an older woman, and just by the way she looks we might make certain assumptions, and we might not even know that we’re making these assumptions.”
Sometimes, these assumptions can lead to differences in the care that doctors provide. That is the point at which you, the patient, should advocate for yourself and clear up any misconceptions the doctor may have, says Dr. Chase. “Say things to your doctor like, ‘I may not seem healthy because I’m 92, but I want you to know that I play tennis three times a day,’” she explains.
This type of discourse can be really helpful when building a relationship with your physicians and even more important when it comes to creating a treatment plan. To sum things up, Dr. Chase says, “In order to avoid situations where potentially the doctor is making assumptions about you that you don’t even really know about, reminding yourself to tell the doctor who you are, to explain your life situation, I think is really important.”
What About a Second Opinion?
Once you’ve gone through all of the tests needed to diagnose your cancer and your doctor has recommended a course of action, you will likely, finally, feel a sense of resolution. But no matter how qualified and experienced the doctor who diagnosed you is, there may be a lingering feeling about getting a second opinion. It’s OK to consider your doctor’s treatment recommendations as just the first step in figuring out what to do next.
“If I had any advice for you following a cancer diagnosis, it would be, first to seek out multiple opinions as to the best care,” National Cancer Institute chief of surgery, Dr. Steven Rosenberg, tells SurvivorNet. “Finding a doctor who is up on the latest information is important, and it’s always important to get other opinions so that you can make the best decisions for yourself in consultation with your care providers.”
A second opinion gives you the chance to explore other therapeutic options. Another doctor may offer a new perspective on your cancer, and possibly recommend treatments that are different than what the first doctor you saw suggested.
Reasons to get a second opinion include:
- To see a doctor who has more experience treating your type of cancer
- You feel like your doctor isn’t listening to you, or isn’t giving you good advice
- You have trouble understanding your doctor
- You don’t like the treatment your doctor is recommending, or you’re worried about its possible side effects
- Your insurance company wants you to get another medical opinion
- Your cancer isn’t improving on your current treatment
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