There are changes that can be made in anesthesia management and surgical intervention that have completely changed such an outcome for patients now treated at Hopkins, yet it isn't practiced everywhere. Health care professionals should continuously inquire and ask for feedback from their patients about their care experiences and this information should be used to define priorities for improvement for the near future. One of the missions of women who are breast cancer survivors should be to do all that we can to make the experience of breast cancer diagnosis and treatment easier and less traumatic for women diagnosed in the future. One of the best ways to accomplish this goal is to promote the development of national quality standards. Well, that may very well be.
Women deserve the best care they can get.
It is bad enough to get a diagnosis of breast cancer. We shouldn't have to settle for mediocre care too. This would mean that rather than nearly every hospital in the country treating women with breast cancer a select few would in the future. You could rest assured that the care provided by these few is the best that can be achieved too. Though it may be inconvenient for some women in rural areas to have to travel some distance for diagnosis and treatment, they will be thankful they chose to do so when all is said and done because they will know from the onset they were in good hands.