How to Choose a Doctor

Nothing prepares a person for cancer. No matter who you are or what your status is in this life, cancer devastates all who fall into its path. I shall never forget sitting across from what appeared to be the biggest desk I have ever seen—only to hear the word cancer!

I had heard this word many times before as many in my family have had cancer, but this time it applied to me—I had cancer. I had been thrown into a dark, black cellar and somehow I had to claw my way out. Where was I to begin?

My mother had heard those same painful words about cancer, and I watched her struggle to find answers from many doctors, only to die a painful, terrible death. I, at least, had her experience to build on: I knew from the start that traditional medicine did not have all the answers, and my experience affirmed it.

Through five years and nine bouts with cancer, on the verge of death more than once, I’ve learned that we are responsible for our health and  treatment, and if we are to live, we must become responsible researchers. If you—or someone you love has cancer—you must be pro-active and make tough decisions. Along the way, my prayer is that you will find some of the doctors I found—wonderful giving, compassionate doctors, giving their lives as Elijah did when he laid his own body down three times on the body of the poor widow’s dead son. I believe with this action Elijah was crying out—“If need be, my life for his!”

I’ve had doctors weep with me, love me—and one even let me hit him when I could bear no more, and then he exclaimed, “Ah! That’s my little fighter.” I have had doctors come into my home to see me through crisis after crisis. I have watched them give of themselves and even risk their own licenses in order to do what they believed might save my life—and not only my life, but many others as well. I’ve seen them sacrifice their own health, families, and wealth in order to do what their hearts compelled them to do. They exemplified the very best of what most of us feel a doctor is meant to do and to be. Never in all the rest of my life will I ever be able to repay these fine doctors or thank them sufficiently—they are my heroes, and I dearly love them.

Nevertheless the facts remain, not all doctors are like that. They are human, and they can and do make mistakes that can turn into the horror stories that many—if not most—cancer victims experience to one degree or another. Certainly I did, from misdiagnosis to faulty treatments and unnecessary procedures and surgeries—I’ve been through it all. For instance, there was one doctor who became angry when he told me I must have an immediate hysterectomy, and I began to ask questions.  “What are you,” he said—“Some kind of Indian woman afraid that if I take your uterus out, I’ve taken your soul?!”

As a result of this and many other very difficult experiences, I have developed my own means of choosing doctors and treatments, which I pray you can learn from and use. It may save your life!

Often the most frustrating part of my whole struggle with cancer was trying to find the doctors who were genuine treasures, and having the courage to walk out of doctors’ offices when I felt they would do me harm (and I do mean – walk out!). I did the research and came to understand my own disease so well, that when doctors were trying to pressure me into their way of thinking, which I felt was wrong, I could stand my ground without accepting everything they said or recommended.  I’ve even walked out of doctors’ offices. Once I literally took the hands of a doctor off my body and told him he would never touch me again.

And, yes, I have gone against my own advice, learning from my own mistakes—like not seeking second opinions. I’ve listened to doctors tell me that if I didn’t follow their recommendations immediately, I would be dead in two hours. I believed them when they told me that it would take several hours to get in touch with another doctor from another hospital for a second opinion, and that I could lose my life by waiting. Because of such pressure, my husband and my children have had to make horrific decisions about my care without being able to think about other options or make inquiries. I have had “urgent” surgery against my wishes, only to be told what I had already known about my own body—they didn’t find the problem, they certainly didn’t cure it, and as a result I spent twelve days in the hospital and weeks of unnecessary painful recovery time.

So if you’re to follow my method of finding doctors who are the true gems in the medical field, you must begin with a change in your own mind set. Doctors are ordinary men and women. They get up in the morning and have to dress just like you do! They are not God, they are tools in His hands, to be used as He and you direct. Learn as I did, that you always have time, time to step back and pray, to research, to get your bearings.

I learned a bedrock principle through all of this. God is Sovereign! God has numbered my days.  God created me. God has a plan for my life. Nothing can happen to me that did not come through His hand. No disease can take my life; no doctor’s error can end my life on earth prematurely. Yet as I fought cancer, I also understood that my life depended on trusting Him as I had never trusted, listening to Him as I had never listened, obeying Him as I had never obeyed. Any time that I was led by fear or the doctor’s prognosis, I suffered for it. But when my husband and I hugged God close, shut out the voices of all the professional experts, refused to put anyone on a pedestal, and heeded the following recommendations, we made progress—one day at a time, and for as long as it took (in my case five long years). 

Recommendations for choosing your doctors:

1. Always call the doctor by his first name. I don’t mean it as disrespect, but as what is—an amazing test of character. I found that doctors who are egotists quickly corrected me when I did that. But when they were truly concerned for me, they smiled and realized that I had taken control of my own body, and had chosen to become their partner in battling my disease. As we worked together, the caring, responsive, responsible doctors earned my respect, and when I found myself beginning to address them as “doctor” it was a compliment to their skill, knowledge, and care—and they knew it.

2. Find out if the doctor a researcher. Ask where he or she was educated. Ask questions and make challenges to find out if you know more about your disease then he does. If you ask a question and the doctor does not seem to know the answer it initially, can he answer it by your next appointment? 

While I had some doctors who didn’t seem to have answers and weren’t willing to look for them, I also had some amazing doctors who put forth tremendous effort. I remember when I was facing one particular dilemma, and the doctor I was seeing seemed to have no answer. By my next visit he had researched—to the point of going to a storage shed and digging out some old medical books—in order to find the answer. I knew that he was a doctor worth listening to!

3. Do your research before you ever choose your doctor, then test your doctor with what you know. Ask him or her—have you ever heard of (doctor so and so in Canada or wherever) who is doing such and such with this type of cancer? If the doctor has never heard of it, move on. It was wonderful when I could ask my doctors questions and hear them tell me that they were aware of this or that treatment, and then—joy of joys—tell me more about the pros and cons of the treatment, allowing me to be further educated to formulate my own opinions and choices.

4. Ask for referrals! Ask for telephone numbers of patients who are still  alive because your doctors have treated them. If the doctors are successful, they should have no problem doing this. Obviously, call those referrals! Cancer patients are generally thrilled by their victories, and they want to share. You’ll find them eager to pass on what they have learned to you, they will spend so much time with you that you will be left feeling hopeful—if they can succeed, so can you!

5. Broaden your horizons. A very prominent cancer patient was once asked why he went out of the U.S. to fight cancer. The man answered swiftly, “In the 70’s I bought a Toyota because the American cars had become so inferior. If I would go out of the country in order to find a better car, why would I not look outside of this country for my own body?”  We have an attitude in this country that our medicine is the best, that our doctors are the only ones with knowledge, that our pharmaceutical companies and the FDA know everything about medicine. Many have died because of this mind set. I saw doctors from all over the world—China, Germany, Mexico, England, The Netherlands. I listened, learned, and lived!

6. Think outside the traditional box—consider nutrition and alternative treatments. And as you do, keep in mind the truth that one doctor shared with me, that in medical school he’d received a total of “one thirty-minute nutrition class” during his entire time of training. One class!

Don’t expect all doctors to be informed about or to have faith in alternative treatments. After working harder than I’ve ever worked in my life, suffering more than I ever thought I could ever endure, scanning the world for answers, doing unbelievably difficult things like taking coffee enemas several times a day,  consuming as many as 340 pills a day, and receiving IV’s for over 500 days—one doctor was so thoughtless and unbelieving as to tell me that “sometimes there are spontaneous remissions.”

There was nothing spontaneous about my remission! This doctor’s mind was so trapped inside his traditional medical beliefs that he could not even acknowledge the possibility that I had found answers elsewhere!

A difficult truth is, as an honest pediatric oncologist of a major cancer hospital once told a cancer patient we know: traditional therapy is often based upon what treatment the hospital most readily has available, and how much money they need to cover their costs.

When researching treatments for his young daughter, one father discovered that even in traditional medicine certain hospitals had much better success rates in their specialized treatments than other U.S. hospitals. In other words, the bone marrow transplant success ratio in one hospital might have a lower success rate for recovery than a similar hospital in another state. One hospital might have done a thousand of these procedures while the other only a hundred! As you might imagine, none of this was revealed without insistent questioning by the father involved; like him, you can ask and keep asking until you have enough information to make an informed choice about which doctor, clinic, or hospital to use. You must!

After doing your own homework you will discover that even in traditional medicine doctors and hospitals often do not agree with one another’s protocol, thus leaving the patient lost and confused.  Add to this mix further discussion of diet, vitamin C infusions, enzyme therapy, insulin based chemotherapy, homeopathy, Chinese herbs, fasting, detoxification, ablation, and you will have most doctors rolling their eyes, telling you that you are just in search of the magic bullet—or the fountain of youth.

I had a different perspective. Though taken out of context, a biblical verse kept hammering in my heart throughout my entire cancer trek:

“Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)

Years ago, before I had been diagnosed with cancer, a Bible teacher had taught me that the emphasis on this verse in the Greek was dramatically clear: ask and keep on asking, seek and keep on seeking, knock and keep on knocking!  During my trek this verse more than all others led me. 

God had an answer—He had an answer to my cancer, if I would keep on knocking, keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on, keep on, keep on!
I stood fast on the promise of:

“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” (Proverbs 25:2)

The answer to my cancer was concealed. I knew in my heart that if I kept on seeking, and asking, and knocking, and searching out the matter; if I laid down all my preconceived ideas about how I would get well; if I would humbly begin from scratch—body, soul, and spirit—knocking, knocking, knocking on doors all over the world if need be, God would uncover the answer. He did, and I am gratefully alive.

7. Pray! I had absolute miracles in this regard. God directed my husband and I, sometimes we were taken to the very edge, but He was faithful. Every practitioner that I came in contact with was a direct answer to prayer. At the last minute a doctor from Germany had a four-hour layover at the airport in our city in the middle of the night. My husband wrapped me up—still in my pajamas—in order for us to go and meet him for just a few minutes. Those minutes saved my life.
Another time one of my doctors had been asked to go to a medical conference, and at the last minute he decided to go. While there, he met a doctor from China that had a suggestion that turned my life around. I had been in unbearably horrible pain for three weeks, to the point of wanting to take my own life, and this Chinese doctor’s suggestion rescued me from the pain.  These are just two examples from a list of at least 15 health care providers—all of whom were answers to prayer.