Finally caught up with the busy Dr. Gabriel Ramos, MD, oncologic surgeon and spent several hours with him in the operating room at IMSS (the social security hospital) for a couple of cases on Wednesday..  I’ll be writing more about him soon.

Yesterday was a full day with clinics here and San Luis.  Also – more homework, so I have to get some studying in before heading back in this afternoon.

On the radio with Cartagena Surgery:

Recorded my very first radio interview with Ilene Little at Traveling 4 Health..  I hope I don’t sound too bad (when I get nervous, I laugh..)  It’s not a pre-determined format, so I didn’t know the questions until she asked them – which makes it more interesting, but I sound less polished as I search my brain for names, dates, places etc.  Trying to remember the name of the researchers who published a paper in 1998, 2008, or 1978 is daunting when you worry about ‘dead air’.. I was so nervous I was even forgetting my abbreviations.  I hope it comes across better to listeners.

We talked about the books, what I do (and how I am surviving on savings to do it).  We also talked about some of the great doctors I’ve interviewed, treatments such as HIPEC as well as some of the quackery and false hope being peddled by people with a lot to gain.. I kind of wish HIPEC and quackery weren’t in the same segment.  Since it was off the cuff – I didn’t have all of my medical references and literature to talk about to distinguish the two (so if you are here looking for information on HIPEC – search around the site – I have links to on-going studies, and research going back over a decade, both here at BogotaSurgery.org .  Of course, the crucial difference between the two is:

HIPEC is a new treatment, but there is NO assurance of success – in fact, some patients die from the treatment itself.

– There is a body of scientific literature on HIPEC for advanced abdominal cancers (ovarian, uterine, etc)

Quakery or pseudo-science can be a bit trickery.  Maybe they take an existing or  promising treatment (like therapies for stroke, Parkinson’s etc.) and apply it to something else – like treatment of serious cancers.  (Yes – people will find papers written about the ‘treatment’, but these papers may not meet scientific rigor, or may not be about the condition or treatment that they are receiving.)  They also promise miracles and cures.

In medicine, even the very best doctors and surgeons can’t promise these things – because medicine itself isn’t an exact science, and different people respond to the same treatments differently – ie. one patient may have complications and another patient doesn’t.

Lastly  – we just touched on it – but I think it’s an important concept – is patient self-determination.  That no matter what I, or anyone writes, does or says – people always have the right to determine their own medical treatment.