Cancerworld.org: GrandRound - A second opinion, because there’s no second chance

 A second opinion, because there’s no second chance

Patients want the option of consulting a second doctor, and the evidence shows that, for a minority of them, treatment decisions have altered significantly as a result. But could granting every patient the legal right to a second opinion tie up precious resources as each one ‘shops around’ in search of the opinion they want to hear?.....

"The fear that many have about ‘upsetting’ their doctor should not be underestimated"


IN SHORT

• Women, especially breast cancer patients, are among the most likely to seek second opinions, probably because of the many different treatment options for breast cancer and its high visibility in the media.

• Computers networks are obvious second opinion enablers. The European Union’s e-Health

• action plan predicts that by 2008 the majority of European health organisations should have the technical capability to provide online teleconsultation services for second opinions and other needs.

• More than a quarter (29%) of US adults reported that they or a member of their family received a second medical opinion from a doctor in the past five years, according to a 2005 Harris Interactive survey. In 30% of these, the diagnosis differed from the original. Another Harris poll in 2006 found that 36% of US adults never get a second opinion and nearly one in ten (9%) ‘rarely or never understand’ their diagnosis.

• Australian researchers have found that ‘Googling’ symptoms on the Internet came up with the right diagnosis in 15 out of 26 cases (reported in the New England Journal of Medicine). At Duke University in the US, medical physicists are using a Google-like approach to compare mammograms with the most highly ranked images returned from a database.