Description
Book SynopsisThe Cancer Experience instructs doctors, medical students, and health care workers involved in cancer care on the proper role of medicine, the role of doctors, and the opportunities for connecting with patients as they make treatment and end of life decisions. It helps patients understand the issues facing doctors as they assist and care for them.
Trade ReviewGoing through cancer treatment experience is difficult not only for patients but also for doctors. In a new book, titled The Cancer Experience: The Doctor, The Patient, The Journey, Dr. Roy Sessions deals with a variety of emotion-related and ethics issues that encompass much of the basis of the cancer treatment experience....Sessions aims to stimulate a dialogue about matters related to cancer treatment as well as the spiritual aspects of hope and other factors relating to the plight of cancer patients and their families. * EMaxHealth: Daily Health News *
This is a book much needed, and no one is more qualified than Roy Sessions—by vast experience and personal character—to have written it. -- Sherwin B. Nuland M.D., clinical professor of surgery, Yale University School of Medicine; fellow, Yale Institute for Social and Policy Studies; author of the National Book Award-winning, How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter
Dr. Sessions, a seasoned, highly respected surgeon, presents an informative, personalized tour through the frightening, often mysterious world of the cancer experience. The self-revelatory tone of the book, particularly in terms of explicating the overriding importance of the relationship between physician and patient, and the central bioethical principles guiding that collaboration, provides invaluable information and support to cancer patients and the people with whom they share their lives. -- Stephen A. Green, M.D., M.A., clinical professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine and co-editor of Psychiatric Ethics
From the foreword: This is a book replete with clinical wisdom earned through the author’s dedication to the care of some of medicine’s most desperately ill patients. It will be of interest and instructional value to medical students, aspiring and practicing oncologists—medical, surgical, radiation—as well as physicians generally. But Sessions intends his book for the general public as well. Importantly, he makes the case that a better understanding of doctors by patients and their families is beneficial for all concerned. The cases Sessions describe will resonate with our own experiences or those of our families and friends. His thoughts extend well beyond the cancer experience to include other serious life-threatening trauma and illness.
Table of ContentsAuthor’s Note on Terminology Foreword Acknowledgments Part I: Intellectual Considerations Prologue 1- Influences on My Development 2- Why the Book? 3- Protecting What’s Good through the Educational Process: Capitalizing on the Gene Pool 4- Oncology Is Not for the Emotionally Stingy 5- Hope 6- Finding New Purpose after Enduring the Cancer Olympics 7- Changing Times, Changing Methods, Unchanging Mission 8- Seeking Functionality within a Moral Framework 9- A Practical Adaptation of the Original Oath in Search for Modern Relevance 10- Death and Dying: Natural and Otherwise 11- Suicide: Patient Conceived, Planned, and Consummated Part II: Interacting with Cancer Patients and Their Families 12- Informal Physician-Patient Communication 13- Patient Confidentiality and Special Patient Circumstances 14- Essentials of Communication Skills: Listening, Hearing, Reading Body Language 15- Gaining the Patient’s Confidence 16- The Cancer Specialist as a Teacher of the Patient and Family: The Lead-Up to Treatment 17- The Physician as an Educator after Treatment: Using the Cancer as a Tool 18- The Journey from the Referring Doctor to the Oncologist: Uncertainty, Anxiety, and Hope along the Way 125 19- More on Physician Leadership: Being in Charge 20- Influences on Cancer Patients’ Attitudes and Receptiveness 21- Communication When There Is Still Optimism for Cure 22- Communication Once Treatment Failure Is Obvious 23- Hospice Care 24- Facing Death and Dying with the Patient Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index About the Author
