TJones

This is exactly the way that MD Anderson Cancer Center works. When my husband was accepted at MDACC he was assigned a Thoracic Medical Oncologist who was the Coordinating Physician on his team of doctors. She then added a Thoracic Surgeon and a Neurosurgeon. Other specialists were added and/or consulted as needed. By the end of his treatments at MDACC he had a team of twenty three different specialists. When a change in his treatment was needed or added the “team” gathered together to discuss the treatment and coordinate all aspects of it. All of my husbands testing and treatments were done at MDACC. All patients are given a Patient Identification Number and that number is used for everything you at MDACC. Every test, every appointment, every doctors report, radiology report, lab report, MRI, CT-scan, PET scan, everything goes to an electronic medical record that is accessible to every doctor on your team. This kept testing from being repeated and no one had to wait for a report from another doctor or department. MDACC also has their own Emergency Center that is accessible to MDACC patients only. I only had to give them my husbands PIN and the doctors treating him in the Emergency Center had access to all of his medical records immediately. MDACC’s system of using a “team” of doctors and giving them the ability to access the patients records immediately made a huge difference in my husbands overall cancer treatment at MDACC. It also helped that each patient is assigned a Patient Advocate, Social Worker, and Schedule Coordinator. At the end, MDACC assigned a “Palliative Care Team” for my husband and they too were great. I probably sound like an advertisement for MDACC but I just wanted to follow up on this post and let you know that this system of care really does make a huge difference for cancer patients and their families. This is not to say that I agreed with every doctor or every line of treatment for my husband. There are a number of things I would have done differently if I had known then, what I know now. Link for MDACC http://www.mdanderson.org/about-us/ I probably should note that my husband was first diagnosed with Stage IV Non-small cell Lung Cancer with a Metastic Brain Tumor.

Follow this link for more information on the "Lung Cancer Mortality Reduction Act of 2009" introduced IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES April 27, 2009 It's worth a few minutes to take a look at it! http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.R.2112: (Just a small section of this bill) SEC. 2. FINDINGS. Congress makes the following findings: (1) Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women, accounting for 28 percent of all cancer deaths. (2) Lung cancer kills more people annually than breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, liver cancer, melanoma, and kidney cancer combined. (3) Since the National Cancer Act of 1971 (Public Law 92-218; 85 Stat. 778), coordinated and comprehensive research has raised the 5-year survival rates for breast cancer to 88 percent, for prostate cancer to 99 percent, and for colon cancer to 64 percent. (4) However, the 5-year survival rate for lung cancer is still only 15 percent and a similar coordinated and comprehensive research effort is required to achieve increases in lung cancer survivability rates. (5) Sixty percent of lung cancer cases are now diagnosed as nonsmokers or former smokers. (6) Two-thirds of nonsmokers diagnosed with lung cancer are women. (7) Certain minority populations, such as African-American males, have disproportionately high rates of lung cancer incidence and mortality, notwithstanding their similar smoking rate. ( Members of the baby boomer generation are entering their sixties, the most common age at which people develop lung cancer. (9) Tobacco addiction and exposure to other lung cancer carcinogens such as Agent Orange and other herbicides and battlefield emissions are serious problems among military personnel and war veterans. (10) Significant and rapid improvements in lung cancer mortality can be expected through greater use and access to lung cancer screening tests for at-risk individuals. (11) Additional strategies are necessary to further enhance the existing tests and therapies available to diagnose and treat lung cancer in the future.