REFLECTIONS:
Decisions, Decisions?
by Teresita Bacani-Oropilla, MD
She was 85 years old. A retired physician in the Philippines, she had gone through a lifetime of changes in her career. Starting as a medical graduate from the University of Santo Tomas, a venerable Spanish Dominican school older than esteemed Harvard in the U. S., she went through the varied steps of primitive rural to modern organized medicine.
Starting as a physician to a sugar cane hacienda, among her duties involved rural type medical practice. At one time, she had to sew up severe wounds from feuding farmers to save their lives. She opened government clinics to teach basic care to pregnant mothers and their newborn babies, organized immunizations for the older children and involved the church members in feeding programs for the needy.
Personally, in her late seventies, she was successfully treated for cancer of the breast, by then modernized city hospitals. She thus continued to a retired and purposeful life. found positive for cancer cells.
Consultation with colleagues, family and oncologists revealed different opinions. The oncologists suggested full treatment with surgery, reconstruction, chemo or radiotherapy as needed. Colleagues agreed or disagreed. So did the family and close friends.
This happily retired asymptomatic patient decided against further interventions. She reasoned that the suggested treatment would occupy the rest of her life, her precious activities with family and friends, her continuing projects and her travels. There was also the mandatory terrific expenses involved in rejoining a progressing, still developing treatment program.
Did she make the right decision? What say you? Dr. Bacani-Oropilla is a retired pediatrician and psychiatrist.
Recently feeling a nodule around her previously treated area, it was
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