I appreciate your point and the way it was written, a very entertaining read! I don't however, totally agree with all the points.

You mention "It requires time—a precious commodity in a system built on volume", but cancer is prolific and has to be dealt with this way. My hospital, a cancer specialist hospital, is building a new "cancer wing" that is three times the size of the current hospital because there are far too many people with cancer who need care and far too few facilities to provide sufficient care to them. This is, by the way, in addition to the other campus across town that is, quite literally, twenty times the size.

When I go to the "cancer areas" of any hospital, such as oncology, it's always the biggest crowd waiting. This is the world we live in. Cancer isn't like other health issues, it requires repeat treatment - sometimes over years. If I consider how many times over the past year I've gone to the hospital to dial in what treatment I needed to get, it's many multitudes more than, say, an appendectomy.

As far as it being perfunctory or routine and by the numbers, there are proven methods that work. Of course there are differences between patients, but when a method is proven to work time and time again, it's hard to say "well let's try something totally new and untested and hopefully you make it". For us, right now, it's RARP or radiation, with other therapies sort of on the fringe, like TULSA. I don't want to be a guinea pig, I just want to get fixed and get out.

But, also, you mention liability being a problem. That's a real thing. Because society has become so litigious, there's simply no winning. They can do it by the numbers and get sued, they can do experimental procedures and get sued. Doctors spend more on malpractice insurance in a year than many people make.

For me, I was listened to and I was not ignored or considered a problem patient for asking questions. Being my own advocate empowered me to not accept what the doctor says as gospel and to seek more advice. My doctors, every one of them, applauded my willingness to talk to other doctors about alternative treatments that might one day become the norm (which then will be perfunctory at that time also).

The point is that you always have a choice. Some doctors are good, some are bad. I don't think I can agree that all of the medical world lives in a box that they cannot break out of, I believe it's emerging daily and more power is given to the patient today than ever before.

I get the sentiment but my experience in this crap sandwich that I was made, with pickles, was that I learned how very many options I had. Nobody cares about my life as much as I do, and I had a voice and I was listened to.