That is great your husband wants to support others. Some doctors lose all emotion and bedside manner. The first oncologist I went to see was all doom and gloom and we moved on and have had such a better experience with our current doctors. Keep up all the positivity and do not let this get you down. Hugs:)

Julie.

Julie,

So happy to see your post and an update. This doctors attitude is repulsive to me and I think your reaction is spot on. As a dependant of an AF vet I have very strong opinions about about the docs at military installation both active duty and contractors. In my opinion they are hacks. I consider them the gate keepers to the referral to the real doctors. I base this on 25 years of dealing with them all over the world.

I know Vince recieved great care at Walter Reed but this new facility is a disappointment. I have a very close friend who recieved one of the first sct over 20 years ago for nhl at wilford hall with great success.

You are so right that people need hope. All I wanted while receiving induction was to meet survivors. My team was amazing about setting me up to communicate with survivors that were two plus years out. This have me such hope.

As far as going back to work, as you know I also work for the Air Force in a civilian capacity. I started working full time two months act dx via teleworking and have never looked back. I highly recommend a complaint to leadership. That was flat out wrong.

With out hope, we are lost.

Blessings
Julie

I think any one of us aml survivors would not agree with this doctors advice. The doctor has not walked in our shoes. And we have not walked in his. I can see how one could become "hardened" after seeing the devastation of this disease time and time again. It takes a exceptional person to be a one of the good or exceptional ones. They are few and far between just like everything else in life. All you can do is pray for a change of heart for this doc. I do agree that if it were me, I would seek out a different doctor if possible.
DaveJ

The first night Keir was in the hospital his oncologist sent a nurse who was an Aml survivor to talk to us and it made a huge difference. The doctor was a jerk and wrong. And he should not be seeing patients if that is his attitude towards a curable, survivable disease.

Wow, that's totally opposite of what I have heard from all other doctors and nurses. They constantly encourage you to stay positive, have hope. I personally don't think your mental outlook matters one bit in whether or not you will recover, but it certainly makes a difference psychologically and I think that's what the doctors are trying to treat when they tell you to stay positive. This doctor obviously was absent the day they taught bedside manner and skipped his psych rotation.

Now that I have stewed on this a bit;
I've always wondered how the docs and nurses could take it, day and day out, which prompted my earlier response. Now that I have reread that response I may have sounded self righteous, that was not my intent. Hopefully you just caught this guy on a bad day. Otherwise Lori is right, he shouldn't be seeing patients. He should be treating patients, not encouraging them to give up or refusing others to support them.
DaveJ

I agree with you everyone needs hope. I know when my son was undergoing induction one of the residents he worked with came in his room and told him her story of recovery he had no idea she had been treated for cancer. It helped him and his wife alot to see thatlife could be normal again.

Karen

His attitude is deplorable, I have a pit in my stomach just thinking about this! How could he even say "false hope", he's in the wrong field. When we were battling, HOPE was what we clung to, I'm angry and sickened by this! A survivor came tower and see tony inpatient and continually called or texted him for support through transplant, it made a world of difference to his mental state.
I would not only report him but also change doctors immediately, I'm so sorry Vince and you had to go through this. Aaaaggghh!
Sending Hugs to you both right now
Lea and Tony

Well, that makes it unanimous. If that idiot doctor was right we should just close down this forum and tell everyone they are going to die so get over it.

I have had this theory for a long time that some of you have heard whenever we hear of a pessimistic sounding doctor. I believe the game that they are playing is to get the patient to underestimate their chances of survival, and then if you do pull them through, then you are a hero. On the other hand, if the family and patient are real optimistic and expecting great things and things go wrong, then you might be stuck with a law suit. Now that is just my theory and it sure would not apply to all doctors. Certainly they should not be overly optimistic or pessimistic -- they should be realistic, but even with that, they can still provide hope. I was about to just go the paliative route myself about six years ago when DXed -- until I got with another doctor who said there was real hope. So effectively I owe my life to this onc, and I told him that when he told me he had taken a job across the country. I hugged him and broke down crying. No, you are not going to tell me that providing hope does not work -- it does, and we all need to be as positive as we can.

Perhaps Vince can sneak into some of the rooms ;o) --- I doubt the doc would notice -- probably is the kind that never visits the floor anyway.

Thanks for posting --and don't let anyone stop Vince from being the great guy that he is -- you are so lucky to have someone like him. -- daveB

This was only the second time we have encountered a pessimistic doctor. And we have seen a lot of different docs (especially since Walter Reed is a learning hospital). We never encountered a doctor like this while we were there. They always were very optimistic with us. Our civilian doctor in Florida would tell us the what ifs but would immediately say I don't think that's anything you are going to have to worry about...I;m not worried about it so no need for you guys to worry about it either. We plan on delivering Christmas stockings filled with goodies (snacks, hand sanitizer, etc) to the inpatient ward at the hospital. Someone did that when we were inpatient along with a note saying 2 years ago he was laying in a hospital bed on the ward Christmas Day getting treatment for lymphoma. He wrote to hang in there and there was life after cancer. The staff on our floor seemed to love it when ex patients came in and did that. I'm sure they directed him to which rooms they thought he should deliver them to. They also had a board where former patients could write notes of encouragement. We'll talk to the head nurse up there before we go (since they are the ones who really run the show). Thanks everyone for the feedback!

:) julie

Only thing -- no flowers or plants to the AML floor -- but other than that I am sure all is appreciated -- take care and God bless -- daveB