What's Wrong with the Cancer Treatment Process? A Breast Cancer Patient's Experience

Abstract

A year of treatment for breast cancer presents a sociologist with a unique opportunity to analyze the health care system from a patient perspective. Serious communication problems occurred not only between patient and professional but between different professionals as well. There is a general assumption that individual patients and professionals can control various aspects of the treatment process. However, many difficulties that arose are actually systemic problems that require a social systems approach for their solution. The problems observed may be responsible for many patients' reluctance to obtain early screenings or care for their medical conditions, or may even result in their terminating care prematurely. In many respects, the health care system is operating outside the control of health care professionals. Attention to the issues raised could make patient care more effective and perhaps more economical as well.