A letter released to physicians on March 5, 2009

Do Some of Your Patients Feel Like They Are On Their Own?

In the past year, Dee Jenkins has seen more than nine doctors in four different hospital systems. She, like many of our patients, has developed some common concerns about areas for improvement in healthcare delivery. Dee knows that I occasionally send bulletins to my colleagues, and she asked if she could send a message. Here is patient and grandmother Dee Jenkins in her own words.

“Since I am a mother of two and grandmother of one, some people are surprised to know that I was walking miles every day, bicycling up to 14 miles per day, and participating in 5Ks while I was going through radiation and chemo. I’m not sure how much this would have been possible without Dr. Taub. Dr. Taub greatly improved my experience fighting breast cancer. I hope that every doctor reading this will consider telling their patients about Dr. Taub when their patients are having pain that won’t go away.

In 2008, I was diagnosed with ductile cell carcinoma (HER2+, estrogen positive, and progesterone positive). After my mastectomy, I experienced serious pain at the surgical scar. My surgeon prescribed some things during follow-up visits, but after repeated complaints, he finally admitted that I was just going to have to suffer through this pain for six months or more. This pain was not disabling, but it was very problematic. It was serious enough to make me not want to do things and to get me discouraged. As I transitioned from the care of my surgeon to the care of my medical oncologist, I was hopeful that she would know more about pain management. Unfortunately, she informed me that she could not add to what my surgeon had already tried.

As luck would have it, my family is fairly well connected, and my son-in-law told me that Dr. Taub specializes in pain management. I wasn’t going to let this pain beat me, so my daughter drove me 220 miles round trip to see him. It was worth every inch of that trip. In one visit he was able to size up my problem and prescribe a custom compounded cream that fixed me.

I sometimes wonder about other people in my situation. My family connections helped me get my mastectomy faster (and may have saved my life) and helped me navigate my way to Dr. Taub (which greatly improved my ability to cope). I know many people don’t have these kinds of connections. I really think my surgeon and my oncologist should have known about a pain management specialist, not my son-in-law. While I have great respect for both of them and only sing their praises, I think they could have served me better by making a referral to someone who specializes in pain management. It’s not like Dr. Taub is out to steal people’s patients. He did his one thing and sent me back to my surgeon. If you have patients suffering from pain that won’t go away, I implore you to take their complaints seriously and to refer them to a pain management specialist like Dr. Taub.”

Call Neal S. Taub, MD, Physiatrist for
pain management & rehabilitation.