Giving Your Doctor "the Talk"

I've been a bit distracted lately by the fact that my father is in the hospital undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer. Before I get rolling into anything else, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who has been sharing their prayers and good wishes.

This experience has been enormously eye-opening. I'm trying to maintain my faith in people and belief that there are no villians here. But, there are a lot of people with a wide variety of styles of care-giving in the hospital. And, frankly, not all of the styles really fit in with the basic theme of meeting Dad's needs and keeping him alive. At one particularly low point in our relationship with his doctors, I conferred by phone with a personal friend, who is also a doctor. And I was delighted when he endorsed the use of something called "the Talk" with any and all of Dad's care-givers.

Though I hope you never do, you may find something similar helpful some day. Here is a rough outline of "the Talk."

• We know what the odds are and we are not deluding ourselves about Dad's chances.
• We are, however, choosing to do everything we can to maximize his chances of sucessfully surviving his cancer. We are choosing life.
• As you probably know, a very critical aspect of his recovery is his own attitude. If you think you can, you will. If you think you can't, you won't. We can and we will.
• We need you to be on the same page with us about this. We need you to take every opportunity to build Dad's spirits and support his hopes for surviving to return home to his new normal life.
• If you choose to join us in this, you may find that you will be a better health care professional in almost everything you do.
• If you find that you can not support the program, we can't use you on this team.
• Will you join us in choosing life for Dad?

If you ever do find yourself in this situation, you may also find a poster that is on the wall in Dad's room helpful. You can see a copy at: http://www.jointcommission.org/NR/rdonlyres/C6635523-8F35-405F-8306-2EA04AC249FF/0/SpeakUp_Poster.pdf

Best wishes for good health for you and yours.

Nick