For too many, it's all about the money, baby!

Cancer Doctors Avoid End-of-Life Talk


Only one-third of terminally ill cancer patients in a new, federally funded study said their doctors had discussed end-of-life care. Surprisingly, patients who had these talks were no more likely to become depressed than those who did not, the study found. They were less likely to spend their final days in hospitals, tethered to machines. They avoided costly, futile care. And their loved ones were more at peace after they died.

Convinced of such benefits and that patients have a right to know, the California Assembly just passed a bill to require that health care providers give complete answers to dying patients who ask about their options. The bill now goes to the state Senate. Some doctors' groups are fighting the bill, saying it interferes with medical practice.

***Like continuing expensive medical treatment they KNOW isn't going to work?!***

But at an American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago earlier this month, where the federally funded study was presented, the society's president said she was upset at its finding that most doctors were not having honest talks.

***Seriously...this was NEWS to her? Huh.***

The new study is the first to look at what happens to patients if they are or are not asked what kind of care they'd like to receive if they were dying... It involved 603 people... All had failed chemotherapy for advanced cancer and had life expectancies of less than a year... Of the 323 who have died so far, those who had end-of-life talks were

* three times less likely to spend their final week in intensive care
* four times less likely to be on breathing machines
* six times less likely to be resuscitated.

***I wonder how much money the medical community 'lost' on these patients.***

James Rogers, 67...wants no such regrets. Diagnosed with advanced lung cancer last October, he had only one question for the doctor who recommended treatment."I said 'Can you get rid of it?' She said 'no,'" and he decided to simply enjoy his final days with the help of the hospice staff at Duke."I like being told what my health condition is. I don't like beating around the bush," he said. "We all have to die. I've had a very good life. Death is not something that was fearful to me."

I do not trust most doctors. Here is just another example of how people in the medical community use their patients to make money or do experiments. I mean, they KNOW there is no way to make them better, but they continue to give them false hope...while they continue to bill for their services.

Jerks.