by drannekatz | Sep 24, 2018 | Uncategorized
It usually starts with a phone call: “Doc, can I come and talk to you about something?” The “something” might be erectile difficulties or other side effect(s) from prostate cancer treatment. It might be confusion or indecision about what treatment to agree to. I...
by drannekatz | Sep 24, 2018 | Uncategorized
I have never seen myself as someone who cares for older patients. Most of my clinical career has focused on caring for young gay men in the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis or high-risk pregnant women. Then I moved into a position in oncology and the fact that most...
by drannekatz | May 7, 2018 | Uncategorized
Henry* is a 67-year-old man who was seen by one of our urologists and then referred to me by one of the nurses for help. His PSA was just over 5 ng/ml and the urologist had booked him for a prostate biopsy the following week. Henry had no idea why all of this was...
by drannekatz | May 7, 2018 | Uncategorized
Sarah* is a new patient, referred to me because she is having difficulty deciding on treatment for breast cancer. I don’t know much else about her and a quick review of her electronic medical record tells me that she is 48 years old and has hormone-positive disease in...
by drannekatz | May 7, 2018 | Uncategorized
As the patient talked, I found myself nodding my head. In so many ways, she was just like me. Highly educated, a professional, a woman who had worked hard and long to get where she was. And then cancer took it all away, or at least that’s the way she described it. She...
