Advertising – juggler

The title of this article is frightening and definitely got my attention. I can relate to being a statistic. I was one of those patients who was called into a room; the doctor showed me a cluster that meant she wanted to set me up for a biopsy. I was terrified. I had to wait a few weeks for the surgery and then a few weeks to get a call from the doctor to let me know if I had cancer or not. I got the call and she said, “The good news is you don’t have cancer; the bad news is you have atypical cells.”  That meant I needed to go to the doctors every 3 months so they could keep a good eye on me and I had a consult with a breast surgeon who wanted to discuss putting me on a cancer drug that has several side effects.  My doctor told me it would reduce my chances of developing breast cancer. Reading about the errors that doctors make reading mammograms scares me to death.  Makes me wonder if I was one of the false readings. The healthcare industry today is a revenue hungry business and the hell with the patients.  Thank goodness for doctors such as Dr. Adcock, who wanted to make a difference. I didn’t realize how monotonous reading mammograms can be.

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1 Response to Advertising – juggler

  1. davidbdale's avatar davidbdale says:

    (Warning, don’t read this to the end if you’d be troubled to see radiographs of breast exams, juggler.)

    Thank you so much for sharing this with us, juggler. By definition, you were certainly a “false positive” since the term has only one meaning: the mammogram indicated cancer but the patient didn’t have cancer. While the clean biopsy has to be a relief for every patient, Dr. Adcock’s goal of reducing the number of traumatic experiences for patients is inspiring and admirable.

    I’m very happy to hear your outcome, but it’s easy to understand why the experience has had lasting effects.

    You may be interested to see how mystifying the films themselves look to an untrained eye. What do radiologists see in these images that indicate a positive or negative reading?
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