UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology January 1, 2022 - Flipbook - Page 50
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
6. Be careful discussing cancer in terms of
winning and losing (eg, she “beat cancer” or
“lost the battle”). Patients may feel agency
and pride when treatment is going well, but
when it isn’t, they can feel blamed.
7. Avoid saying patients “failed chemo.”
Patients didn’t fail chemo. Chemo failed
them.
8. Simplicity is a virtue. For any jargon, act like
a good dictionary.
9. Be precise and direct. Sometimes metaphors
help convey an idea; other times they
obscure the point. Some patients will find it a
relief to have frank discussions about cancer,
suffering, death, and dying—using that exact
language.
there for his child, of the simultaneous hope and
fear that someone else will fill the void.
When Ehud kept asking us that favorite question
of his—What’s the most painful thing happening
in your life?—he was pushing us to face our
deepest fears, so that we could feel them, learn
from them, and write about them. He wanted
us to look directly at pain, at loss and death, and
call them by their names. ☐
Originally Pubished in the Journal of Clinical Oncology
Contributed by:
Matthew J. Farrell, M.D.
PGY-3
Prior to going ot medical school and subsequently entering the
Radiation Oncology Residency at UCLA, Dr. Matthew J. Farrell
received an MFA for Creative Writing at the University of Oregon.
10. Never use the words “nuclear option.” Ever.
My friend Ehud died in 2015 at age 60, survived
by his wife and two sons. He continued to teach
until soon before his death. I wish I could share
more about his views on cancer—his list would
have been much better than mine—but I never
asked him about his experience with leukemia.
Maybe I was intimidated, maybe I was hesitant
to bring up a topic so personal. I don’t have any
illusions that I would have offered him profound
wisdom—that was his specialty—but I might
have let him know I was there to listen. He
would have had meaningful things to say. Thank
God he left behind a record of his inner world:
his writing.
Ehud sent me one of his last short stories when
I was starting medical school, with the following
instructions: “Read this when you need a break
from memorizing the 347 bones of the foot.” The
story was about a boy whose father was dying of
cancer, and the parallels with his own sons were
impossible to miss. The boy lives the full life of a
fifth-grader—a school play, a crush, rival suitors,
basketball—while his dad is sidelined, too weak
to get out of bed. When his dad asks him about
a new basketball move he’s learning with his
coach, the boy falls silent, because an image is
swimming across his vision: instead of being in
his parents’ house, the boy is going home with
his coach, playing basketball in the driveway,
having dinner with his coach’s family. It is a
heartbreaking depiction of a father unable to be
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