Talking to your NET healthcare team: practical tips
Medical appointments can be stressful. A few simple habits – bring someone, take notes, write your questions down – make every visit go further.
Written by NECNZ team
Being told you have cancer is a confusing and frightening time for you and your loved ones. Your healthcare team will do their best to support you. But your medical appointments can be stressful, so here are some tips to get the most out of each appointment.
A few things to keep in mind:
- The most important part of your healthcare team is you
- You know more about you than anyone else does
- Your doctor can help you more if you are an active partner in your treatment
Five practical habits that help
1. Bring a trusted friend or family member with you if you can. If you are worried, you may not hear everything that is said, or ask all the questions you wanted to. It helps to have someone else to listen, and to help make sure your concerns are brought up.
2. Take notes on what symptoms you are feeling and when. Take these notes along to your appointments – they can help your medical team see patterns that aren't obvious from a single visit.
3. Write down a list of questions you want to ask. If you don't understand the answers to any of your questions, don't be shy about asking for the answer to be repeated or explained in a different way. Make sure you know who your point of contact is and how to get hold of them, in case you have questions later.
4. Ask about the multidisciplinary meeting. Deciding on a treatment strategy can be difficult, so asking your doctor to seek opinions from other specialists can be helpful. This is often done during a Multidisciplinary Meeting (MDM). Doctors are usually very open to this because they know that making the best treatment choice for people with NETs can be hard. You can always ask that your case be discussed at an MDM.
5. You decide how much you want to know. You can choose how much you want to know about your own cancer – including your overall treatment strategy, what the future might hold (prognosis), and what options are available if initial treatments don't get your cancer under control. You also have the right to make decisions for yourself, even if the choice is against medical treatment or to end medical treatment.
If you'd like a friendly hand to think through what to ask before a big appointment, get in touch with our team.
