Empowerment
I have received many personal emails from blog readers who have told their stories of having dealt with lymphoma. In so many cases, the disease has, at times, been enmeshed in the pressing, tough, tangential issues that might be properly characterized as physician resistance to the patient's enquiry about radioimmunotherapy (RIT).
What are the reasons that an oncologist may resist the patient's interest in learning whether RIT is appropriate for him or her? I submit that there are several possible reasons. One, certainly, can be that the oncologist feels that RIT is contraindicated for the patient. A second may well be that the oncologist has not been educated---has not been enlightened---about RIT. And the third, sad to relate, may be that the oncologist does not want to lose the patient to another physician who does administer RIT.
For the non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patient, I suggest that it is no longer appropriate to think of the question, "why the resistance?". Why do I say this? For, I sense that patients now have a sense of empowerment, a sense of confidence, a sense of vital self-interest, to insist upon a consultation with a physician experienced in RIT.
Good for you, dear patient !
Power to the patient.
Mort