r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 1d ago

Cancer Study finds many doctors disregard wishes of cancer patients. Frequently, patients with advanced cancer simply want to be made as comfortable as possible as they wind down their final days. Many of these patients are receiving treatment focused on extending their lives rather than easing their pain.

https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2025/08/26/cancer-patients-treatment-wishes-study/7921756217134/
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u/gnatdump6 1d ago

Unfortunately the culture can be to treat at all costs from the perspective of Doctors. Sometimes financial losses occur with patients stopping treatment (like in the US), which creates a terrible conflict of interest.

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u/OfSpock 1d ago

And the relatives sue afterwards when they miss the patient and forget about their suffering. My mother’s friends daughter filed a suit after her death. I don’t know how it went as we lost contact, but they were all ‘Mum could have been saved if the dr had done X.’

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u/gnatdump6 1d ago

Yeah, sad when people can not come to terms with death. Not everybody can be fixed or cured.

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u/juliuscaesarsbeagle 1d ago

As a disabled person born in the US, I agree, and I'd emphasize the problem is a lot bigger than cancer.

The one certainly is the us medical system will rob you before they eventually decide your poor enough to deny treatment.

I smash yes every time right to die bills show up on the ballot. We should have a say

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u/AndroidAtWork 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yea, that makes tons of sense. Oncologists acting unethically for their financial benefit. Because apparently those patients with cancer are a hot commodity and there aren't many left these days.

Gonna throw something wild at you. New patients take more time. More time is more billable hours. More studies to be ordered with new patients. More procedures for new patients. You could argue an unethical oncologist might be more financially motivated to practice poor medicine so that the patient dies more quickly than they would with an appropriate treatment plan, and then they have more time on their schedule to see new patients. Or do like other unethical oncologists have been convicted of, and diagnose/treat cancers that don't exist at all.

Nevermind the fact that there is a severe shortage of oncologists in the US. So patients that do need to see an oncologist have to wait longer.

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u/gnatdump6 1d ago

New patient intake, planning and seeing how they respond to treatment should take lots of time. Totally reasonable. Trying out different treatments to see what works takes months/years. When treatment is futile and just plain cruel is not okay. Transitions to hospice need to occur sooner.

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u/AndroidAtWork 23h ago

You're right, transitions to hospice should occur sooner than they typically do. Not many medical practitioners are going to argue otherwise. And these things are usually explained to patients and their families pretty clearly. It's pretty cut and dry from the perspective of the clinician however patients and their families aren't necessary logical.

You have to get people to agree to it, it's not a decision that can be forced upon them by the provider. It doesn't matter how much evidence and logic you have on your side if the person on the receiving end of that conversation isn't receptive. If people who are staring right at the end of their mortal coil and aren't ready to make that transition yet. Or people who are more emotional than logical. Or illogical. Or rely upon faulty logic. Or uneducated people. Or people that are distrustful of science/medicine.

A lot of this stuff in medicine is very black and white but in the end, the patient is a human and their families are human. Humanity doesn't always accept that things really are black and white and will desperately search for shades of gray or other colors on the spectrum. And they won't accept the black and white nature until the very, very end.

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u/cogman10 22h ago

I'm sorry but this is really silly. Oncologists aren't paid on commission. They don't get extra money for having extra patients. If anything, they'd much rather have fewer patients so they can focus more intently on the ones they have.

Now, the hospital loves new patients and overworked oncologists. But it's not like they are incentivizing anyone on staff based on patient load. They can barely be assed to give nurses a pizza party.