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Oh this is actual medicine.
I fully expected some fluff piece about using cancer metaphorically, but this is a pretty interesting piece about how the word cancer colors a patient’s perception of risk and treatment approaches.
Sounds obvious when you read about it.
But changing the name of things is difficult…
At least here there’s a very good argument.
Ah, this got a good writeup by news piece. I first learned about this from Medlife Crisis’s The Epidemic of Fake Disease. Statistics about anything as big as cancer diagnoses are beyond complex, and honestly it would take a gargantuan effort of science communication to get this out to the general public. It’s… sobering to know that mortality is not morbidity and that harsh side effects create the most important optimization problems of patients’ lives. I hope that if (or maybe when) I get confronted with a similar diagnosis, I can face the numbers and the odds with as much of a level head as possible.
The important thing is NOT to read the numbers and odds when/if it happens to you. Treatments are progressing rapidly, and odds are based on people receiving treatment 5+ years previously.
