Kategori: Kreftbehandling

før natten kommer, minner jeg om en svært berømt tankevekker fra
tidsskriftet Zocalo 10/2011 :
BY KEN MURRAY|NOVEMBER 30, 2011
MD, Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine at USC.

How Doctors Die
It?s Not Like the Rest of Us, But It Should Be

Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. He had a surgeon explore the area, and the diagnosis was pancreatic cancer.
This surgeon was one of the best in the country. He had even invented a new procedure for this exact cancer that could triple a patient?s five-year-survival odds?from 5 percent to
15 percent?albeit with a poor quality of life. Charlie was uninterested.
He went home the next day, closed his practice, and never set foot in a hospital again. He focused on spending time with family and feeling as good as possible. Several months later,he died at home. He got no chemotherapy, radiation, or surgical treatment.
Medicare didn?t spend much on him.
. . . .
les hele artikkelen her . . . .

Svært interessant Blog innlegg i British Medical Journal nyttårsnummer,
nettutgaven, HER. Ikke minst kommentarfeltet er enestående.
Tankevekkende lesning, langt på vei i tråd med hva jeg selv mener om
moderne kreftbehandling.
Overbehandling med kjemoterapi er et stort
problem, som i mange tilfeller reduserer livskvalitet mer enn det
gagner pasienten i hans sin siste levetid.
Underbehandling av sterke smerter med ikke-opiat medikamenter,
i frykt for tilvenning/avhengighet, er et annet problem. (som ikke behandles her)

Et lite utdrag her :
«»This is, I recognise, a romantic view of dying, but it is achievable
with love, morphine, and whisky.
But stay away from overambitious oncologists, and let’s stop wasting
billions trying to cure cancer, potentially leaving us to die a much
more horrible death.

Richard Smith was the editor of The BMJ until 2004. He is now chair
of the board of trustees of icddr,b [formerly International Centre for
Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh], and chair of the board of
Patients Know Best. He is also a trustee of C3 Collaborating for Health.

Competing interest: RS will die, perhaps soon: he’s 62.
«»

Hele artikkelen i tekst finnes nedenfor, i extended.

Fortsett å lese «BMJ Blogs: Richard Smith: Dying of cancer is the best death»