Anticancer Tutorial

Exercise shared decision-making after understanding how doctors think

James Fleck: Anticancerweb 25(07), 2020

 

Anticancer Tutorial is a pedagogical resource created to inform the patient of the steps involved in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. As a cognitive process, the tutorial promotes empathy, improving doctor-patient relationship. It brings language closer, explains technical procedures and creates mutual understanding. The tutorial encourages a proactive attitude in the patient, promoting the search for information and leading to a better understanding of the physician’s recommendations. When facing cancer, doctors and patients have to share goals and motivations. The tutorial is an attempt to change the patient's attitude, rejecting passive behavior, immobility and tacit acceptance of the disease. By improving communication, the tutorial can lead to better results in most interventions proposed by doctors.

The tutorial was created as a responsive tool. You can consult it on a computer, tablet or smartphone. You can browse through 12 icons, indicating the most important phases of a comprehensive cancer patient assessment. By clicking on each of the icons, you will be guided on the meaning of each phase and better understand the set of decisions that doctors need to make in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

If you are having a cancer diagnosis or are a family member of a cancer patient, you might benefit from the tutorial. However, it is advisable to share the decision with your attending physician. Your attending physician can better assess whether the tutorial is right for your specific case. My experience with the patients who took the tutorial under supervision was favorable. Most of the time, it took about one hour. In general, patients took the tutorial in my office's waiting room and in the family environment, which facilitated the sharing of information, both with the doctor and family members.

 

Here is the link to the tutorial:

http://www.jamesfleck.com/tutorial?locale=en

  

References:

 

1.     James Fleck: Advice in Clinical Oncology, Link: www.jamesfleck.com