Duty to Treat: Should Lawyers Advise their Clients on Treatment Options?
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Should Lawyers Advise their Meso Clients on Treatment Options? A must read for all patients! |
This article compiles research from experts around the United States and beyond to assess the benefits of emerging treatment options, doctors who utilize them, and their results. It also probes the legal arena where mesothelioma patients undoubtedly spend some time and unearths the astounding medical costs patients can expect to face. A must read for all mesothelioma patients and concerned individuals.
Roger Worthington dares to ask, “Who should help?” The answer is, we all should help. Patients of rare cancers are burdened with researching their disease and available treatment options, locating and determining the “best” doctors, making travel arrangements - sometimes from across the nation, not to mention playing the tiresome game with insurance companies. Since mesothelioma patients are likely to have recurrences, sometimes this grueling cycle starts over all too soon as they try to determine what the next treatment should be.
Where do most patients start the search? It is not necessarily with their diagnosing doctors who often have never treated a mesothelioma patient. Patients turn to the internet. If you google “mesothelioma,” legal websites abound. So if law firms can hold themselves out to be one of the first places to turn, should they be able to give some medical direction, too, if nothing more than a starting point?
As Mr. Worthington indicates, it is difficult for the very institutions that treat mesothelioma patients to provide accurate and timely information. Therefore I believe it is up to those who work with patients in all capacities – doctors, lawyers, advocates, and family members – to provide an informational launch pad for patients. At minimum provide the basics on treatments and doctors. When you can, get the details; locate the research and associated numbers.
-Jessica Like, Executive Director of PHLBI
January 8, 2008