Why Surgeons Do Not Use Arm - 1272 Words

There are various reasons why surgeons do not use ARM. Although within my survey, it is impractical to extrapolate which opinions represent what percent of the surgical population due to the small pool of my interviewees, they do represent concrete viewpoints within the surgical field. The implications of having identified these reasons depend on whether they can be solved. From the evidence gathered, it is clear that the ambiguity surrounding ARM’s safety is a factor deterring surgeons from using it. The surgical procedure’s safety concerns are involved with leaving cancerous lymph nodes, which can lead to metastasis. I did not ask the doctors in my interviews about this, but if ARM is never widely used for breast cancer patients, perhaps†¦show more content†¦59). Dr. Holmes, who uses ARM, offers a similar solution for reducing metastatic risk. After surgery, he uses anti-cancer medications, and sometimes radiation therapy to kill remnant cancer-cells in the ARM nodes. However, this is already common practice for surgeons after they perform surgery on any of their cancer patients. This may indicate that for some reason, surgeons are still not comfortable with leaving cancer-cells in ARM nodes. If a patient’s surgeon does not practice ARM for this reason, it would be beneficiary to ask him/her about whether NAC could be an option and also why standard anti-cancer treatments do not alleviate his/her concerns about ARM’s oncological safety. On top of these reasons is the fact that ARM also takes more time to perform. If many surgeons simply do not like the extra time it takes, informing patients of this fact could help them advocate for themselves by finding a surgeon who would take the extra time to perform the procedure for them. This is not to say however, that such surgeons are unreasonable and cruel. They should be compensated for doing the procedure. As previously mentioned, Dr. Holmes’s website says most of the time insurances do cover the procedure. If this is not the case, patients and doctors could advocate for it to be. If insurance does cover the procedure, but surgeons, like Dr. Camal, are unaware of this fact, it would be valuable to ensure