ABSTRACT
The concept that the doctor makes the diagnosis and tells that story to the patient without benefit of input from the patient seems harsh, yet it was a consistent finding throughout the research. Many patients require a combination of treatment modalities, so doctors from different disciplines discuss cases at multidisciplinary care conferences (MCC) once a week. Multidisciplinary care conference is a social space where doctors debate alternative treatment plans. Although doctors pronounce the diagnosis with certainty with patients, they share the ambiguity, the uncertainty, and the conflicting demands of difficult cases at MCC. The patient had some obstructive symptoms, controlled with Flomax. The assistant for the presentation was scrolling throughout the bone scan, again using the roller on the mouse. The patient had perineural invasion with prostate cancer, and the second biopsy that was negative was false assurance that the cancer was gone; this patient's been living with his cancer for the entire time.
