Case Presentation Chief complaint: Abdominal pain and weight loss for 3 months.
ORLANDO—A study of physicians from five countries found that nurses and hematologists counseling patients with chronic myeloid leukemia about the importance of adherence to prescribed tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) or having an established adherence protocol, such as medication diaries, pill organizers, or informational calendars, was associated with im proved adherence, and those patients who took the drugs as prescribed had significantly better therapeutic milestones.
SAN ANTONIO—Researchers are reporting “woefully inadequate” mammography rates in American women, even in those with healthcare coverage.
Milayna Subar, MD, National Practice Leader, Medco Oncology Therapeutic Resource Center in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, and colleagues analyzed medical claims data obtained in more than 1.5 million women between 2006 and 2009. All of the women had health insurance through their employer or Medicare.
What started as tumor board conferences a decade ago has grown into a true multidisciplinary team approach to comprehensive breast care. ProHealth Care’s Center for Breast Care at Waukesha Memorial Hospital’s Regional Cancer Center in Waukesha, Wisconsin, is an interdisciplinary breast cancer clinic where patients can see multiple specialists in one visit. With the opening of the clinic, the various specialists involved in patient care can talk to each other about a patient in real time, not replacing tumor board conferences, but taking patient care to the next level.
To help patients cope with terminal illness, healthcare providers must imagine themselves in the place of these patients, according to Tami Borneman, MSN, CNS, a research specialist at City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, California.
In a presentation at the sixth annual Oncology Congress, she coaxed her audience to pretend their own deaths were imminent. “I really want us to take in what it’s like to be a person receiving bad news,” she said.
Healthcare workers need such exercise es, because communicating bad news is really difficult, she said.
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