{"id":4003,"date":"2008-01-10T04:10:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-10T04:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4003"},"modified":"2025-09-30T01:39:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:39:27","slug":"cancer-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=4003","title":{"rendered":"Cancer patients, oncologists, and empathy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good article in the NY Times<\/strong> as their reporter Denise Grady talks aobut her sister’s experience with cancer, as well as other patients and their interactions with doctors. <\/p>\n

Cancer – Patients – Medicine and Health – For Cancer Patients, Empathy Goes a Long Way – New York Times<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Research supports the idea that a few kind words from an oncologist \u2014 what used to be called bedside manner \u2014 can go a long way toward helping people with cancer understand their treatment, stick with it, cope better and maybe even fare better medically. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is absolutely the role of the oncologist\u201d to provide a bit of emotional support, said Dr. James A. Tulsky, director of the Center for Palliative Care at Duke University Medical Center.<\/p>\n

But in a study<\/a> published last month in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dr. Tulsky and other researchers found that doctors and patients weren\u2019t communicating all that well about emotions. <\/p>\n

The researchers recorded 398 conversations between 51 oncologists and 270 patients with advanced cancer. They listened for moments when patients expressed negative emotions like fear, anger or sadness, and for the doctors\u2019 replies. <\/p>\n

A response like \u201cI can imagine how scary this must be for you\u201d was considered empathetic \u2014 a \u201ccontinuer\u201d that would allow patients to keep expressing their emotions. But a comment like \u201cGive us time; we are getting there\u201d was labeled a \u201cterminator\u201d that could shut the patient down.<\/p>\n

The team found that doctors used continuers only 22 percent of the time. Male doctors were worse at it than female ones: 48 percent of the men never used continuers, as opposed to 20 percent of the women. <\/p>\n

Surprisingly, Dr. Tulsky said, the patients didn\u2019t bring up emotions that often \u2014 in only 37 percent of the conversations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s extraordinary,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are advanced cancer patients.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good article in the NY Times as their reporter Denise Grady talks aobut her sister’s experience with cancer, as well as other patients and their interactions with doctors. Cancer – Patients – Medicine and Health – For Cancer Patients, Empathy Goes a Long Way – New York Times Research supports the idea that a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-lymphoma-and-related-medical-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5947,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4003\/revisions\/5947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}