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From: jeff@rtech.UUCP (Jeff Lichtman)
Newsgroups: net.med,net.women
Subject: Re: Re: Breast Cancer Treatment.
Message-ID: <569@rtech.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 02:41:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: rtech.569
Posted: Thu Jul 25 02:41:04 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jul-85 07:02:59 EDT
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Organization: Relational Technology, Alameda CA
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Xref: tektronix net.med:01867 net.women:07165 

> About assigning patients treatments for breast cancer randomly:
> > 
> > This is  standard  experimental  procedure....
> > 
> > The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe)
> 
> It is my impression
> that most people have opinions on things, so I would assume that most
> doctors have an opinion on what they *think* is the best treatment for
> a particular disease for a particular person.  Therefore if they are
> not willing to provide what they think is the best treatment, then in
> my opinion, they are not doing the best they can.
> ...
> Before I get flamed into hell for this, let me add that I do not believe
> that it is up to doctors to decide what their patients should do, but
> it is their responsibility to inform their patients about all the
> available treatments and their advantages and disadvantages, and then
> let their patients decide for themselves.
> 
> Sophie Quigley

I'm sure that most doctors have opinions on which treatments should be
used for particular diseases.  However, they also have the responsibility
to make sure that their opinions are based on fact.  For decades the most
common treatment for breast cancer was radical mastectomy; subsequent
research has shown that it is not the best treatment in most cases.  It is
my understanding that radical mastectomy was the first successful treatment
for breast cancer, but no research was done originally to show that it was
the best or only way.  For a long time doctors used this technique because
"that is the way it is done."

I agree that doctors should use their best judgement, and keep their patients
informed.  But they should also be sure that their "best judgement" is really
best.  This can be done only with research.
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.)
aka Swazoo Koolak

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