Second Opinions… Helpful or a Waste of Time?
I’ll cut to the chase: It will always be helpful and it’s always a good idea. However, in my experience it matters who you get the second opinion from.
Here I was sitting in my new oncologist’s office and she’s just said a lot of words including, but not limited to: Chemotherapy, Radiation, Surgery, Rectum, Sphincter, Prognosis… and Cure. The main take away the first meeting was that she was confident in and aiming for total cure of the cancer that was inside of me. Now I really liked my oncologist from the moment I met her, and even a bit before because I had been referred to her by a colorectal surgeon who I also very much liked. He said that if his daughter was diagnosed with cancer that Dr. S is who he would want her to see. So when she stopped talking and all the words kind of hung there in the air I was a little nervous to ask about getting a second opinion. I didn’t want her to think I was doubting anything she said, her knowledge and expertise, nothing of that sort. I had full and complete faith in the plan she had come up with, but everyone that I had talked to asked if I was planning to get a second opinion.
I think I said something like, “And this might be completely unnecessary, and I want you to know I am fully onboard with this plan you came up with, but should I get a second opinion?” She took no offense to the question whatsoever and sent along a referral to the University of Minnesota. There was a doctor there who specialized in the specific rectal cancer I had and was highly sought after, I didn’t know the sought after part until I tried scheduling an appointment with him and he wasn’t available for 2+ months. So, I was scheduled with a different doctor… not as sought after apparently.
I go into this meeting thinking it’s going to be a quick video call, he’s going to tell me he reviewed the plan and it all checks out and send me on my merry way to get chemotherapy pumped into my body every two weeks for 4 months but that’s surprisingly not how the call went at all. First, he wanted me to explain my diagnosis to him (did you read my chart?) and then he went into some long winded rant about how he wasn’t actually fully convinced I had cancer at all. Now at this point I had had a colonoscopy and two flexsigmoidoscopies where they biopsied my tumor about 15 times but they weren’t able to get a tissue sample that showed cancer cells were present. However, we did have a MRI scan that showed a mass growing through my rectal wall and into my abdomen about the size of a large egg (which would actually end up being the size of 2 large eggs… so maybe there’s a different food item that this would be comparable to but that’s neither here nor there). Alls to say, this doctor (researcher?) was telling me maybe I didn’t have cancer. Amazing, right?! Spoiler alert: I did have cancer.
After that debacle, I went back to my original oncologist and politely asked if I could have a referral to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota, ya know, the greatest medical institution in the world that just so happens to be an hour and a half away from us. She happily obliged and I was off to Mayo. It was at Mayo where I was connected with some of the greatest doctors, nurses, NPs and PAs I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. They were able to get my tissue diagnosis and confirm the original plan with a few tweaks.
So like I said, always always always get a second opinion when you can. I know there are circumstances where treatment needs to start ASAP, but if you have the time you should most definitely get another physicians thoughts on your treatment plan.