Stressed to the Limit: Blending Psychosocial Support with Critical Care
Healthcare professionals are increasingly adopting a biopsychosocial perspective, integrating psychology into practices at hospitals and critical care centers. Cindy Lauren's diagnosis of stage III lobular breast cancer stretched the limits of her a...
Stressed to the Limit: Finding Resilience
Resilience, the ability to bounce back despite life's difficulties, has become an important research topic in psychology. Two cancer survivors talk about their response to their disease, and how they learned to take the cancer experience and turn it...
Living with Cancer: Value of Cancer Support Groups, The
The challenges of treatment and the uncertainties of the disease are difficult for any cancer patient to endure. Some cancer patients have found that it helps to talk with others who are battling the disease, whatever phase they are in. This segment...
Living with Cancer: Cancer Treatment: Informed Decisions
In recent years, cancer has become more of a chronic illness, with people living with the disease over a long period of time. The various forms of treatment now available become integrated with their lives. The extensive research and testing that ha...
Living with Cancer: Cancer: A Family Disease
Cancer is a family disease. It is rare for patients to keep the diagnosis hidden, not just because they need someone to share their fears and concerns with, but because they will need help and support during recovery. Even young children feel the th...
The Medical Marketplace: Who Determines Access to Healthcare?
The question of who decides about access to healthcare in a particular circumstance is a major issue facing this nation. Kidney dialysis was just such an issue before it became a Medicare entitlement. Today patients and doctors find themselves fight...
The Medical Marketplace: Primary Care Physician
The insurance plan that is selected often influences the choice of a primary care physician who will provide periodic checkups, suggest preventive strategies, and respond when illness strikes. The primary care doctor recommends specialists when nece...
The Medical Marketplace: Critical Care Decisions
There are systematic errors that are often made in judging one alternative versus another, one treatment versus another. It is important to be able to interpret the kinds of words physicians use to indicate probabilities or risk, and the likelihood ...