six years ago I was diagnosed with a
kind of cancer that usually kills people
within a few months I was incredibly
lucky I found a brilliant and
compassionate surgeon who gave me a
chance but I still needed chemotherapy
so there was in the oncologists office
and we very quickly established that I
had no health conditions that would
interfere but then he got really hung up
on the fact that I did not have a
husband he kept coming back to it he
kept saying how are you going to manage
I kept trying to tell him about friends
about extended family who would be there
for me
he talked right over me then he said he
was going to give me just this one mild
drug but the only thing that had any
chance of killing off that kind of
cancer was a combination of that drug
and a much stronger one so I said why
always said I wouldn’t risk the
side-effects of anything stronger with
somebody in your situation so I went
elsewhere I went to an oncologist who
has it turned out had lived on her own
for a number of years before she married
she had the perspective to ask broader
questions is there someone who will come
and stay overnight with you is there
someone who you could say with would
someone give you rides with someone
bring you meals that’s what a doctor
needs to know as long as it’s a
competent adult there’s no medical
reason why it has to be one particular
person she gave me the good chemotherapy
and as you see I survived but even so I
was really bothered by the fact that
even one oncologist would have done what
that first one did so being a researcher
by profession I did some fact-checking I
was astonished I had no idea how often
that happens of all the evidence that I
found the best was a massive database
that’s maintained by the National Cancer
Institute
it’s a government agency the database is
called seer se er it tracks the records
of millions of cancer patients in all
different parts of the country among
other things attracts them by marital
status you probably have seen headlines
that were based on seer studies every
now and then a major Medical Journal
puts out a big study gets on the
headlines gets on the evening news and
the big news is people who are currently
married are more likely to survive all
different kinds of cancer than those who
are divorced widowed or never married
but there’s another statistic that
doesn’t make the headlines if you show
up without a current partner based on
the millions of cases in the seer
database you are significantly less
likely to be offered the most aggressive
cancer treatment just like what almost
happened to me and that is true even
when the researchers take into account
other factors like age economic level
and of the stage of the cancer seer does
not say why that happens
but the medical researchers who write
these articles suggest that it’s
entirely on the patient if you don’t
have a partner they suggest you don’t
have the motivation to seek aggressive
cancer treatment you might not even have
the motivation to live you might be
depressed you might be on drugs you
might be alcoholic you might not be able
to follow medical instructions now we
all know there are some single people
there are some people who live alone who
do fit that model they are socially
isolated by any definition of that term
there’s a sociologist named Eric
Klinenberg who wrote a best-seller going
solo in which he told the detailed
stories of several of those isolated
people but Klein and Berg also pointed
out as a mirror
seconds wait longer before marrying the
first time as some never marry at all as
divorce becomes more common as people
remain single longer between
relationships as people are less likely
to remarry after widowhood or divorce
the typical American typical American
between age 18 and death will spend more
time single than married and for much of
that time they will live alone according
to the United States Census Bureau 28%
of American households are occupied by
an adult living alone that’s more than
one in four with numbers like that there
is no medical justification for assuming
that everyone in that category has the
same needs that is a personal belief
psychologists have done a good deal of
study of the personal beliefs of
physicians and how those affect the
medical treatment that’s offered to
patients sometimes it’s on lifestyle it
may be on race it may be weight it may
be whether a patient smokes educational
level but so far I found only one
medical researcher who dared to ask the
question or physicians personal beliefs
affecting the treatment of cancer
patients her research showed that
oncologists do sometimes have a
stereotype of single people that leads
to withholding the most effective cancer
treatments from patients who could have
handled it that researchers name is Nina
Cavalli björkman she is a Swedish
oncologist
she gave a TEDx talk in Sweden about how
people turn their lives around it’s
worth watching I’d also recommend a TEDx
talk that was done in Belgium by an
America psychologist named Bella DiPaolo
she’s talking about myths that people
believe about what it means to live
single to give one example
the myth that everybody who is single
necessarily is looking for a partner now
of course having a loving partner can be
a wonderful way to find comfort and
support in a serious illness and
certainly it is the way most people
would prefer to do it but on any given
day in this country almost half of
adults are single it may be through
choice or it may be because that’s where
life has led them and that can happen
very unexpectedly the belief that the
people who love them the people who are
there for them somehow don’t count is
not true and in a medical setting it can
be deadly right now that we know that
what do we do about it well for that one
I consulted experts I was writing a
story about this for The Washington Post
and I interviewed the supervisors of
Social Work at three medical
institutions the Mayo Clinic in
Minnesota sloan-kettering in New York
City and Christiana Care in Delaware I
interviewed them separately but each one
said pretty much the same thing first
they said yes it is true if you show up
without a partner you may be subject to
discrimination by all kinds of health
care workers who may not even realize
they’re doing it it’s not because those
health care workers are bad people but
like the rest of us they don’t tend to
think through things they have been
taught to believe the solution is not
blamed the solution is education
awareness getting the word out and all
three of those social workers have the
same suggestion about how to get the
word out they said now that so many
people are living single and so many of
those single people do have good support
systems suppose that when somebody is
goes into a hospital or starts being
cared for at a Medical Center suppose
the patient or someone with them were to
say to
a hospital social worker a patient care
representative in a doctor’s office
maybe a nurse practitioner excuse me I’m
single or my sister who was just
admitted to your hospital is single my
friend my neighbor and we’ve heard that
there are stories showing that we could
have some discrimination here
can you help can you make people aware
can you get the word out in a doctor’s
office instead of waiting for the doctor
to ask questions about what they think a
social support system is what about
getting out in front taking the
initiative before we talk about that
treatment plan doctor I want you to know
I am not alone six years ago if I had
not known what chemotherapy I was
supposed to receive I would have had no
reason not to stay with that oncologist
who wanted to give me that one mile drug
it would greatly have reduced my chance
of survival it is quite likely that
right now I would be a statistic seeming
to validate all those studies that say
that unmarried patients are less likely
to survive and the sad part is nobody
would have realized that with the same
cancer but without the social prejudice
more patients without partners could
have an equal chance to stay alive –
thank you
you
kind of cancer that usually kills people
within a few months I was incredibly
lucky I found a brilliant and
compassionate surgeon who gave me a
chance but I still needed chemotherapy
so there was in the oncologists office
and we very quickly established that I
had no health conditions that would
interfere but then he got really hung up
on the fact that I did not have a
husband he kept coming back to it he
kept saying how are you going to manage
I kept trying to tell him about friends
about extended family who would be there
for me
he talked right over me then he said he
was going to give me just this one mild
drug but the only thing that had any
chance of killing off that kind of
cancer was a combination of that drug
and a much stronger one so I said why
always said I wouldn’t risk the
side-effects of anything stronger with
somebody in your situation so I went
elsewhere I went to an oncologist who
has it turned out had lived on her own
for a number of years before she married
she had the perspective to ask broader
questions is there someone who will come
and stay overnight with you is there
someone who you could say with would
someone give you rides with someone
bring you meals that’s what a doctor
needs to know as long as it’s a
competent adult there’s no medical
reason why it has to be one particular
person she gave me the good chemotherapy
and as you see I survived but even so I
was really bothered by the fact that
even one oncologist would have done what
that first one did so being a researcher
by profession I did some fact-checking I
was astonished I had no idea how often
that happens of all the evidence that I
found the best was a massive database
that’s maintained by the National Cancer
Institute
it’s a government agency the database is
called seer se er it tracks the records
of millions of cancer patients in all
different parts of the country among
other things attracts them by marital
status you probably have seen headlines
that were based on seer studies every
now and then a major Medical Journal
puts out a big study gets on the
headlines gets on the evening news and
the big news is people who are currently
married are more likely to survive all
different kinds of cancer than those who
are divorced widowed or never married
but there’s another statistic that
doesn’t make the headlines if you show
up without a current partner based on
the millions of cases in the seer
database you are significantly less
likely to be offered the most aggressive
cancer treatment just like what almost
happened to me and that is true even
when the researchers take into account
other factors like age economic level
and of the stage of the cancer seer does
not say why that happens
but the medical researchers who write
these articles suggest that it’s
entirely on the patient if you don’t
have a partner they suggest you don’t
have the motivation to seek aggressive
cancer treatment you might not even have
the motivation to live you might be
depressed you might be on drugs you
might be alcoholic you might not be able
to follow medical instructions now we
all know there are some single people
there are some people who live alone who
do fit that model they are socially
isolated by any definition of that term
there’s a sociologist named Eric
Klinenberg who wrote a best-seller going
solo in which he told the detailed
stories of several of those isolated
people but Klein and Berg also pointed
out as a mirror
seconds wait longer before marrying the
first time as some never marry at all as
divorce becomes more common as people
remain single longer between
relationships as people are less likely
to remarry after widowhood or divorce
the typical American typical American
between age 18 and death will spend more
time single than married and for much of
that time they will live alone according
to the United States Census Bureau 28%
of American households are occupied by
an adult living alone that’s more than
one in four with numbers like that there
is no medical justification for assuming
that everyone in that category has the
same needs that is a personal belief
psychologists have done a good deal of
study of the personal beliefs of
physicians and how those affect the
medical treatment that’s offered to
patients sometimes it’s on lifestyle it
may be on race it may be weight it may
be whether a patient smokes educational
level but so far I found only one
medical researcher who dared to ask the
question or physicians personal beliefs
affecting the treatment of cancer
patients her research showed that
oncologists do sometimes have a
stereotype of single people that leads
to withholding the most effective cancer
treatments from patients who could have
handled it that researchers name is Nina
Cavalli björkman she is a Swedish
oncologist
she gave a TEDx talk in Sweden about how
people turn their lives around it’s
worth watching I’d also recommend a TEDx
talk that was done in Belgium by an
America psychologist named Bella DiPaolo
she’s talking about myths that people
believe about what it means to live
single to give one example
the myth that everybody who is single
necessarily is looking for a partner now
of course having a loving partner can be
a wonderful way to find comfort and
support in a serious illness and
certainly it is the way most people
would prefer to do it but on any given
day in this country almost half of
adults are single it may be through
choice or it may be because that’s where
life has led them and that can happen
very unexpectedly the belief that the
people who love them the people who are
there for them somehow don’t count is
not true and in a medical setting it can
be deadly right now that we know that
what do we do about it well for that one
I consulted experts I was writing a
story about this for The Washington Post
and I interviewed the supervisors of
Social Work at three medical
institutions the Mayo Clinic in
Minnesota sloan-kettering in New York
City and Christiana Care in Delaware I
interviewed them separately but each one
said pretty much the same thing first
they said yes it is true if you show up
without a partner you may be subject to
discrimination by all kinds of health
care workers who may not even realize
they’re doing it it’s not because those
health care workers are bad people but
like the rest of us they don’t tend to
think through things they have been
taught to believe the solution is not
blamed the solution is education
awareness getting the word out and all
three of those social workers have the
same suggestion about how to get the
word out they said now that so many
people are living single and so many of
those single people do have good support
systems suppose that when somebody is
goes into a hospital or starts being
cared for at a Medical Center suppose
the patient or someone with them were to
say to
a hospital social worker a patient care
representative in a doctor’s office
maybe a nurse practitioner excuse me I’m
single or my sister who was just
admitted to your hospital is single my
friend my neighbor and we’ve heard that
there are stories showing that we could
have some discrimination here
can you help can you make people aware
can you get the word out in a doctor’s
office instead of waiting for the doctor
to ask questions about what they think a
social support system is what about
getting out in front taking the
initiative before we talk about that
treatment plan doctor I want you to know
I am not alone six years ago if I had
not known what chemotherapy I was
supposed to receive I would have had no
reason not to stay with that oncologist
who wanted to give me that one mile drug
it would greatly have reduced my chance
of survival it is quite likely that
right now I would be a statistic seeming
to validate all those studies that say
that unmarried patients are less likely
to survive and the sad part is nobody
would have realized that with the same
cancer but without the social prejudice
more patients without partners could
have an equal chance to stay alive –
thank you
you
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