The little joke about them reflects a reputation of which oncologists may rightly be proud. Oncologists, though, have a very specific job. They seek to treat and hopefully cure cancer. Left unchecked, modern medical advances in oncology could indeed lead to greater suffering among patients who still have some hope for a cure, but who will more likely die. For that reason, we must applaud and encourage the development of palliative care, treatment which seeks not to cure, but to ease pain.
Palliative care is an area of medicine which has seen rapid advance in recent years.
I am pleased to note that a fellowship training program in palliative care is now being established in the Family Practice Department at our University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. I can attest to the truth of that statement. Time and again, I have seen patients experiencing terrible pain while their disease was being treated. And yet, those same patients were freed of pain as soon as they went into hospice care, where they received palliative treatment. Hospice care works.