consensus

It is 7:00 AM.  I could be all cozy in bed.  I could be watching Matt Lauer giving the news.  I could be taming my boys hair for school.  But no.  I'm attending a Tumor Board Review. It's one of the "perks" of an oncology rotation.  It feels too early in the morning to be listening to words like incurable, survival rate, devasting and malignant.  But that is what I am hearing.


The Tumor Board Review is a team approach to treatment  "in which experts in different medical specialties review and discuss the condition and treatment options of a patient. In cancer treatment, a tumor board review may include that of a medical oncologist (treatment with drugs), a surgical oncologist (treatment with surgery), and a radiation oncologist ( treatment with radiation)."  Today, we had twenty specialists. They gather every Wednesday morning, fortified by a yummy hospital-provided breakfast buffet, and deliberate recent cases.


This morning there were two cases.  A man with lung cancer and a woman with an abdominal tumor.  I catch about 3% of what is being said.  Something about fibropsuedo extronominalies and lymphocytastices, whether the mass is psydostatic or psydotoxic, should treatment be chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, or photodynamic therapy (which sounds the most positive to me). After the detailed explaination is given, micrographs of the tumor and MRI's of the body are shown.  I could not find the tumor in the first patient, though everyone else seemed to immediately.  In the abdominal MRI I was relieved to quickly discern the large mass.  Then the speaker identified something smaller and lower while stating that "clearly this large object is the stomach." Oh well.


What I did understand was the final step of the meeting.  After presenting all the facts about each patient, and after each specialist gives their opinion on treatment, the entire group comes to a plan of care consensus.  The primary care doctor then takes this consensus to the patient to start treatment.


I love the honesty in this room.  There is a problem - no minimizing or disguising or beating around the bush.  Someone is sick and desperate.  With open hands they come looking for help and hope and healing.


This recognition of need, this consensus of a problem, is the starting line for Christians.


Douglas Coupland ended his book Life After God with these words.  "My secret is that I need God - that I am sick and can no longer make it alone.  I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness, to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love."


My grace is enough; it's all you need.   My strength comes into its own in your weakness.  
1 Corinthians 12:9 Message