Terminius_Est
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Why Doctors die differently
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577243321242833962.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
Years ago, Charlie, a highly respected orthopedist and a mentor of mine, found a lump in his stomach. It was diagnosed as pancreatic cancer by one of the best surgeons in the country, who had developed a procedure that could triple a patient's five-year-survival odds—from 5% to 15%—albeit with a poor quality of life.
Charlie, 68 years old, was uninterested. He went home the next day, closed his practice and never set foot in a hospital again. He focused on spending time with his family. Several months later, he died at home. He got no chemotherapy, radiation or surgical treatment. Medicare didn't spend much on him.
It's not something that we like to talk about, but doctors die, too. What's unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared with most Americans, but how little. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care that they could want. But they tend to go serenely and gently.
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Jezza_Belle
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I think most people faced with 5-15% odds would choose to live the rest of their time in peace, not in the agony that is cancer treatment.
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Aerlinthian
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Why Doctors die differently
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Jezza_Belle posted:
I think most people faced with 5-15% odds would choose to live the rest of their time in peace, not in the agony that is cancer treatment.
Excellent point. I didn't read the article but I wonder where the break points are percentage wise for doctors behaving like the general population.
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Jezza_Belle
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Aerlinthian posted:
Jezza_Belle posted:
I think most people faced with 5-15% odds would choose to live the rest of their time in peace, not in the agony that is cancer treatment.
Excellent point. I didn't read the article but I wonder where the break points are percentage wise for doctors behaving like the general population.
I'm sure they are much more willing to accept the inevitable simply because they see sickness and death regularly so it's not a shock to them that it could happen... They also know the truth about treatments, and recovery chances, as well as quality of life in the long run.
I'm not sure I would have chosen treatment if my odds had been bad, or if my only option was to continue having treatment for the rest of my life (however long). There are TONS of cancers that don't get "cured", they go into remission, and you keep coming back for maintenance treatments forever. I don't know how I'd feel about living like that.
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-Accident-
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Jezza_Belle posted:
I think most people faced with 5-15% odds would choose to live the rest of their time in peace, not in the agony that is cancer treatment.
I don't know about that necessarily. This guy was 68 years old, odds are his kids were grown, if he had any. If it happened to me right now, my kids are ages 6 and 7. Getting even just a couple more years with them would be huge and that could be well worth the agony IMO.
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Reapist
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You know the urban legend about the guy that strapped a rocket engine to his El Camino and on a curve in Arizona it kept going straight and smashed into a cliff face? Well, I think I would get the Predator tune on my Challenger so the computer didn't shut the car down at 176 MPH then also get a Paxton Supercharger and Nitrous. Then I think I'd find that same desert road and see how fast my car could go.
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jonus156
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-Accident- posted:
Jezza_Belle posted:
I think most people faced with 5-15% odds would choose to live the rest of their time in peace, not in the agony that is cancer treatment.
I don't know about that necessarily. This guy was 68 years old, odds are his kids were grown, if he had any. If it happened to me right now, my kids are ages 6 and 7. Getting even just a couple more years with them would be huge and that could be well worth the agony IMO.
this. if i got cancer 20 years from now im 95% sure i wouldnt get treated id just make the most out of the time i had left
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Gaevren
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-Accident- posted:
Jezza_Belle posted:
I think most people faced with 5-15% odds would choose to live the rest of their time in peace, not in the agony that is cancer treatment.
I don't know about that necessarily. This guy was 68 years old, odds are his kids were grown, if he had any. If it happened to me right now, my kids are ages 6 and 7. Getting even just a couple more years with them would be huge and that could be well worth the agony IMO.
Agreed. At this point in my life I'd take just about any opportunity offered to me in order to spend more time with my kids and family. But at 68? I'd probably do the same as the doctor did.
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JD_HOGG
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Jezza_Belle posted:
I think most people faced with 5-15% odds would choose to live the rest of their time in peace, not in the agony that is cancer treatment.
Could be that. Could also be the realization that he'd spend everything he has to get that extra 10% chance and chose to leave his family some money instead. Things probably look at lot different when you aren't the guy getting paid to give someone that extra 10% chance.
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myxomatosis8
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68? Forget that isht, I'm not going to be racked with nausea and have my QOL destroyed to maybe get another couple months or years in that condition...
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-Ducky-
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I think I have read that article before, or one very similar to it. In fact, it came up in conversation today on another board I post on. I think I had read some doctors even get Do Not Resuscitate Tattoos on their chests because they feel so strongly about not being a "vegetable."
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Sgian_Dubh
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It's funny that people say "I'd make the most of the time I had left"...
WTF have you been doing up to that point?
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gpputnam
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Sgian_Dubh posted:
It's funny that people say "I'd make the most of the time I had left"...
WTF have you been doing up to that point?
life happens when you're making plans...
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Ferrydust
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Sgian_Dubh posted:
It's funny that people say "I'd make the most of the time I had left"...
WTF have you been doing up to that point?
posting on ACF
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-Mithan-
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Sgian_Dubh posted:
It's funny that people say "I'd make the most of the time I had left"...
WTF have you been doing up to that point?
The irony I find in it is that it is pointless.
Somebody "dead" doesn't know if they had a good time or a crappy time on the planet. They are dead. Done. Period.
Unless there is some mythical energy source that retains memories that humanity has yet to detect, it matters not, except in the present.
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Ferrydust
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-Mithan- posted:
Sgian_Dubh posted:
It's funny that people say "I'd make the most of the time I had left"...
WTF have you been doing up to that point?
The irony I find in it is that it is pointless.
Somebody "dead" doesn't know if they had a good time or a crappy time on the planet. They are dead. Done. Period.
Unless there is some mythical energy source that retains memories that humanity has yet to detect, it matters not, except in the present.
STOP TRYING TO CHEER US UP
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-Mithan-
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Ferrydust posted:
-Mithan- posted:
Sgian_Dubh posted:
It's funny that people say "I'd make the most of the time I had left"...
WTF have you been doing up to that point?
The irony I find in it is that it is pointless.
Somebody "dead" doesn't know if they had a good time or a crappy time on the planet. They are dead. Done. Period.
Unless there is some mythical energy source that retains memories that humanity has yet to detect, it matters not, except in the present.
STOP TRYING TO CHEER US UP
There is nothing cheery about death. It is the end of our consciousness, which is why people will try to survive even when there is a 5% chance of survival. It's still better than ZERO.
The doctor, having experienced mass death over time, begins to accept it as he/she ages.
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AynRand
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We need a "Like" button.
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Jezza_Belle
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-Accident- posted:
Jezza_Belle posted:
I think most people faced with 5-15% odds would choose to live the rest of their time in peace, not in the agony that is cancer treatment.
I don't know about that necessarily. This guy was 68 years old, odds are his kids were grown, if he had any. If it happened to me right now, my kids are ages 6 and 7. Getting even just a couple more years with them would be huge and that could be well worth the agony IMO.
I don't know what kind of history you have, but IMO I have a bit of a unique perspective at least among most of the people around here, having been through cancer treatment, and I know that my treatment while being pretty awful, was not nearly as bad as some kinds of cancer treatments get.
Once you get to the point that you are in constant pain, can't eat, can't sleep, can't piss or sh*t worth a damn, maybe you have a tube inserted directly into your gut because you can't keep anything down. You don't have the energy to go up/down the stairs of your house, let alone get outside, see family and spend time with them. They end up seeing you die a very graphic prolonged death that will affect them forever.
Not really what I want for the end of my life.
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Caoilin
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i'd need a fairly huge survival chance to under go the torture that is treating cancer.
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Elmador_MoK
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I can respect that kind of decision, but as for imo, do not go gentle into that good night.
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-Foxy-
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Jezza_Belle posted:
-Accident- posted:
Jezza_Belle posted:
I think most people faced with 5-15% odds would choose to live the rest of their time in peace, not in the agony that is cancer treatment.
I don't know about that necessarily. This guy was 68 years old, odds are his kids were grown, if he had any. If it happened to me right now, my kids are ages 6 and 7. Getting even just a couple more years with them would be huge and that could be well worth the agony IMO.
I don't know what kind of history you have, but IMO I have a bit of a unique perspective at least among most of the people around here, having been through cancer treatment, and I know that my treatment while being pretty awful, was not nearly as bad as some kinds of cancer treatments get.
Once you get to the point that you are in constant pain, can't eat, can't sleep, can't piss or sh*t worth a damn, maybe you have a tube inserted directly into your gut because you can't keep anything down. You don't have the energy to go up/down the stairs of your house, let alone get outside, see family and spend time with them. They end up seeing you die a very graphic prolonged death that will affect them forever.
Not really what I want for the end of my life.
this is why ppl should be allowed to go out as they wish. to end their life when they are ready to do so. not have to be made to suffer because the law says they arent allowed to and drs/ppl cant help.
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Fozzie_Bear
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way too much "serious" up in this thread.... retiring to the sharpie thread for a while
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-Mithan-
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-Foxy- posted:
Jezza_Belle posted:
-Accident- posted:
I don't know about that necessarily. This guy was 68 years old, odds are his kids were grown, if he had any. If it happened to me right now, my kids are ages 6 and 7. Getting even just a couple more years with them would be huge and that could be well worth the agony IMO.
I don't know what kind of history you have, but IMO I have a bit of a unique perspective at least among most of the people around here, having been through cancer treatment, and I know that my treatment while being pretty awful, was not nearly as bad as some kinds of cancer treatments get.
Once you get to the point that you are in constant pain, can't eat, can't sleep, can't piss or sh*t worth a damn, maybe you have a tube inserted directly into your gut because you can't keep anything down. You don't have the energy to go up/down the stairs of your house, let alone get outside, see family and spend time with them. They end up seeing you die a very graphic prolonged death that will affect them forever.
Not really what I want for the end of my life.
this is why ppl should be allowed to go out as they wish. to end their life when they are ready to do so. not have to be made to suffer because the law says they arent allowed to and drs/ppl cant help.
Can't.
Western society is based on christian values and the bible says you have to let death take you as it sees fit.
I think this is stupid. Not everybody follows the bible, so it should be allowed.
On the flip side, there obviously has to be controls in place. We don't need "death panels" deciding if we live or die.
Anyways, Doctors kill people all the time by "request", it is just kept quiet and only the doctor and the family ever knows about it.
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NeoKarnak
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Fozzie_Bear posted:
way too much "serious" up in this thread.... retiring to the sharpie thread for a while
LMAO! That will cheer someone up quick.
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Ungabhunga
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I thought Doctors died differently because they keep changing the timeline. 
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Anebriated
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the article sounds like doctors die differently because they are more educated, especially about end of life situations.
if everyone simply had a very good advanced directive the enormous expenses and difficult decisions that have to be made for people without them would cease. no one would be kept on life support for months because it isn't clear what the patient would want.
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