Tag: shared decision-making

Assessing Your Decision Making in Breast Reconstruction

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Decision making is a process we use every day. When faced with a mastectomy for those affected by breast cancer, decision making can become emotionally complex and sometimes physically exhausting. Assessing your decision making in breast reconstruction can help you understand the deliberate and thoughtful work you put into this critical time in your life. First Steps in Decision Making in Breast Reconstruction This topic has come to my attention this week while supporting a newly diagnosed woman. Her process resonates with me as I recall my own process of decision making in breast reconstruction after my second breast cancer diagnosis. Here are pertinent steps to consider. How Are You Doing So Far? These six steps are key but certainly not all inclusive in the decision-making process for breast reconstruction. When you step back and look at them collectively you should be giving yourself quite a bit of credit at Continue Reading →

Episode 9: Shared Decision-Making

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When it comes to making decisions in your healthcare, my guest, Dr. Minas Chrysopoulo and I present the first in a series on the topic of shared decision-making in the summary of Episode 9: Shared Decision-Making on the DiepCJourney podcast. Toliman Health was founded by Dr. Minas Chrysopoulo, an internationally recognized expert in breast cancer reconstruction and shared decision-making. Dr. Chrysopoulo is the creator of Toliman’s flagship app, Breast Advocate® As co-leads of the WHIS Shared Decision-Making Expert Group our goal is to facilitate the adoption and practice of shared decision-making (SDM) throughout healthcare systems and across all medical disciplines. The “why” of the informative approach to decisions in healthcare is multi-faceted. It encompasses the patient’s preferences, values, support system, and expectations for outcomes. Back to Our Favorite Topic: Shared Decision-Making It is important in so many ways. Shared decision-making is not actually a new concept. It has been around since the 1980’s. Being one of Continue Reading →

Creating Community to Promote Shared Decision-Making

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Throughout ancient history, we have gathered in communities to share stories. Stories change lives, change communities by connecting us with familiar human experiences. They can also elicit a call to action. Think back to a moment sitting around a family table, campfire, or standing on a neighborhood corner listening to someone’s story. Did it leave you with a lasting memory, provoke personal change, or inspire a call to action changing the trajectory of your purpose in life? How do we measure the value of creating community to promote shared decision-making? Authoring My Own Story Became My Call to Action My life changed by sharing my own story. I began writing a blog in early 2015 about my second breast cancer diagnosis that occurred in April of 2014. Seven months after a double mastectomy I had successful DIEP flap breast reconstruction using my own tissue. My surgery was performed by a Continue Reading →

WHIS Talks: Global Healthcare Thought Leaders Discuss Patient Empowerment and Shared Decisions

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Can we take concepts in healthcare and make them customary practice to improve patient care and outcomes by advancing patient empowerment and shared decisions? I invite you to consider this question yourself after watching the video and reading the summary from this session of WHIS Talks as global thought leaders discuss patient empowerment and shared decisions. Terri Coutee: Nonprofit Leadership and Shared Decisions I am a two-time breast cancer survivor who had successful DIEP flap breast reconstruction. As a trained ESL instructor turned nonprofit leader after my second breast cancer diagnosis, I appreciate the need for clear communication and understanding of language. In cancer care, patients must quickly absorb concepts and terms they have no knowledge of or intended to know about. Curating communities and discussion based on evidence-based medicine is an important aspect of cultivating the patient process helping them to understand the plethora of terms to use in Continue Reading →

Episode 16: Options for Breast Reconstruction after Mastectomy

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When a person faces a mastectomy due to breast cancer, they have options to reconstruct their breasts. The options include using an implant, using the patients own tissue, or choosing to remain flat with aesthetic flat closure. Dr. Steven Pisano of PRMA, Plastic Reconstructive Microsurgical Associates, in San Antonio, Texas discusses all the options for breast reconstruction after mastectomy in Episode 16 of the DiepCJourney podcast. The Voice of an Expert in Breast Reconstruction after Mastectomy Dr. Pisano is one of the original founders of PRMA in San Antonio. He started the practice in 1994 with partner Dr. Peter Ledoux to serve the San Antonio area with general breast reconstruction surgery. Since that time, they will be on track by the end of 2021 to perform over ten thousand flap breast reconstruction surgeries for patients from all over the world. They now have a team of eight highly skilled microsurgeons Continue Reading →

Episode 6: Living Flat after Breast Cancer

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Juliet Fitzpatrick is a breast cancer survivor and patient advocate from the U.K. who chose aesthetic flat closure  after breast cancer. She writes about her experience at Blooming Cancer, Living Flat and Recovery after Breast Cancer. In Episode 6: Living Flat after Breast Cancer, on the DiepCJourney podcast Juliet and I chat about her decision to remain flat. She asked a lot of questions and did her research after her breast cancer diagnosis before making this choice. We chat about prosthesis, support groups, blogging, and of course, our combined interest in gardening. These are all on the list of things Juliet is doing since her diagnosis and through her continued recovery, finding the simple passions in life that are important to her. The Breast Cancer Diagnosis Juliet was diagnosed with breast cancer in her left breast after having the second routine mammogram she ever had in her life. She was Continue Reading →