I have been rotating with different oncologist for the last week. Today, I got the sense that I offended one of the oncologist. I saw one of his patient's in the pall care clinic a couple weeks ago. The patient wanted to rediscuss treatment options. I, of course, told the patient that everyone had said that the treatment options weren't available. However, I, as a non-oncologist, was not believed. So my attending asked me to email the patient's oncologist to let him know what the patient wanted. Apparently, even though the oncologist swore I didn't offend him, I offended him. He was like, "you made it look like I didn't talk with the patient about anything. Didn't you read my note? Why didn't you refer him for a second opinion?". Because 1. The patient didn't trust my opinion because I wasn't an oncologist 2. He didn't want to go anywhere other than Wake and 3. I can only read him the note the oncologist wrote because I don't know the algorithms for cancer treatment plans. Anyway, he swore I didn't offend him but then brought it up multiple times that I should have written my email to him in a different way. Or told me how I should have interacted with the patient during my clinic visit. Then, he asked what I was supposed to be doing with him in clinic, and I explained that I needed to learn about chemotherapy/immunotherapy and its side effects. Immediate response from him, "treatment doesn't have side effects"... I play along, and then spend four hours being pimped on how to choose adjuvant therapy and what adjuvant therapy is and how to choose treatment. And then how to calculate the relative benefit of each treatment and how to stack them. Thanks for listening to what I needed to know and spending our time together talking about anything but what I needed to learn about.
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