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Medical Records

Program: In what way does being female increase your cancer risk? A look at gynecologic cancers
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Gina:

Education, your own research. Even if you don't necessarily get the best information on the internet, it often gives you the gives you questions to ask, because I was completely unaware of what the possibilities were and the implications and the words. The whole lingo of medical terminology was all new, so I could easily access that information on the internet and ask questions. And do ask questions. And in fact ask for copies of your medical records.

Andrew Schorr:

Which you own, folks. They're your records.

Gina:

I was surprised getting the ones from the general practitioner, which I needed to take to future doctor appointments for second opinions, I was surprised at some of the inaccuracies and things that were written on those that I wasn't aware of, like the lining of the uterus that the doctor didn't tell me about the first time.

Andrew Schorr:

Kind of like checking your credit report.

Gina:

Probably more important. Because it's your health.

Dr. Gray:

I was just going to say I would really recommend--when I see patients, especially when I've done a surgery, and Dr. Greer probably does this as well, too, copies of their pathology report and even if they want copies of their operative report and things like that, I really believe patients should keep that and read those so they know what's been going on.

Andrew Schorr:

So let me tell you who we're--if you're just tuning in who we're visiting with. That was Dr. Heidi Gray, who is a gynecologic oncologist, so trained as a gynecologist but spends a lot of time, years, working in gynecologic cancers. So she's a surgeon but she also deals with all the chemotherapies and other approaches, and we'll talk more about what the approaches are now to these varies cancers and where research is headed.

And then we also have with us Dr. Ben Greer, and he is the director of gynecologic oncology at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. And he's more my age, and he has a wealth of experience as a professor at the UW in this area.

And then Gina Milano, who we introduced at the beginning of the show, Gina, 59 years old from Bellevue, who was told maybe she was going through menopause when she was having spotting, and it turned out to be endometrial cancer, which she has spent most of this year going through treatment for.

We'll take a beak. We invite your calls. It's not often you get a chance to ask questions, and this does affect about 80,000 women a year, new cases. The number is again 206-421-5757, and 888-312-5757. We'll be back with more Patient Power right after this.

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