Some medical treatments are pointless. But will patients want to know? | Fay Schopen

Imagine going to a doctor with a broken foot, say, or a bad back, or in a worst-case scenario, cancer, and being told that doing nothing would be the best course of action? Naught, zero, forget about it, go home – it hardly sounds like heartening advice.

But that could be the case. Senior doctors say that many procedures routinely carried out are in fact pointless. The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, which represents 22 colleges, has published a list of 40 tests or treatments that they say have little to no effect on the patient, including x-rays for back pain and plaster casts for some small fractures.

The move is part of a campaign called Choosing Wisely, aimed at helping both medical professionals and patients to make informed decisions. A laudable goal of course, but as truth after sober truth unfurls on the website it feels like being repeatedly told that Father Christmas doesn’t exist. You know in your heart that this information is correct, but you don’t really want to hear it. Sure, you’ll come out the other side wiser and more mature, but also sadder; carrying with you the dull, adult ache of acceptance. The world is somehow a less joyful, more utilitarian place when you know that tap water is just as effective as cleaning cuts and grazes as sterile saline solution, or that hooking yourself up to a drip after an epic bender will not make you feel any better (although it does make for a great Instagram post).

Doing nothing when it comes to our health is not a palatable idea. We live in the age of intervention, when the most important thing in life is to do something, anything, everything – to have control over our own destiny. This way of thinking has spawned a million lifestyle bloggers, thousands of wellness apps, and more photographs of avocado on toast than could ever be necessary.

And there are some extremely serious – and uncomfortable – truths outlined by the academy. Palliative chemotherapy – sometimes used to shrink tumours or eliminate distressing symptoms – may not be the best course of action for terminal cancer patients, for example. Chemotherapy is toxic, and the academy says it may do more harm than good and can raise false hopes.

The truth is that many aspects of life are simply uncontrollable. Ageing, infertility, death and disease – even broken bones – are most often out of our hands. And hearing this news now, post-Brexit, when unemployment, housing and the economy are looking so precarious is an added kick in the teeth. When things are this bad, we want the illusion of control at least.

Who wants to tell a hopeful, expectant and possibly angry patient that ‘nothing’ is the answer?

I speak as someone who last week spent £70 on supplements in my local health food shop, in an almost certainly useless attempt to turn the clock back and coax my ovaries, ravaged by the chemotherapy I had five years ago, into spitting out one or two final, viable eggs. This was after being told by a consultant that I was extremely unlikely to be able to conceive. Did I accept the news stoically and quietly? Did I thank my lucky stars that at least I was alive, and feel grateful? Of course not. I whipped out my phone and began combing message boards and medical journals, downloading papers, buying books and noting down names of supplements I had never heard of. Doing nothing in the face of life’s black humour feels defeatist.

“You can’t put a price on health can you!” I said like a lunatic in the shop, embarrassed to be spending so much on what could be quite possibly be snake oil. Well, yes, you can: £70 in my case. It should also be noted that the consultant did not tell me to do nothing either. Despite the diminishing odds of IVF and my advancing age, there were “options”, she said. I didn’t ask what they were as I have a fair idea (donor eggs; surrogacy; Betty Blue-style madness) and I am not a millionaire. Infertility is a field ripe for doing something rather than nothing. A perfect convergence of the unbearable sadness of longing for a child, coupled with advances in technology and a faint ray of hope. It was a private clinic, and I felt like a walking wallet rather than a patient.

Choosing Wisely, however, addresses things that are more prosaic. It was launched in part to address the fact, revealed in a study carried out last year, that 83% of doctors said they had prescribed or carried out a treatment that they knew to be unnecessary. Well sure – they’re only human. Who wants to tell a hopeful, expectant and possibly angry patient that “nothing” is the answer?

Surely medical professionals have been merrily x-raying backs and putting feet in plaster casts and so on because on some level these things make patients feel good. Sometimes doing something, anything, is a placebo – and perhaps if this was recognised as such, the truth would be more palatable.

Some medical treatments are pointless. But will patients want to know? | Fay Schopen

So you"ve beaten breast cancer. Some congratulations might be nice | Fay Schopen

‘Exercise is excellent for you, cancer or no cancer. The tips really don’t seem notably arduous – just above twenty minutes a day of moderate ­exercise, like strolling.’ Photograph: Justin Kase zninez/Alamy

Cancer, that invasive and insidious ailment, is by no means far from the information, and breast cancer, the pinkest and fluffiest of all the cancers, especially so. We’re horribly used to the issues-that-lead to-cancer story – final week, for example, we realized that eating red meat in early life may possibly result in breast cancer, except it most likely doesn’t. And for great measure, two studies recommended that there may possibly be a genetic or hormonal website link between possessing a whole lot of moles and developing the disease. So now you can lie awake at evening in terror, examining each inch of your entire body, although digesting your dinner of lentils and tofu. So far, so acquainted.

But when you’re a single of the virtually 50,000 females in Britain diagnosed with breast cancer each and every 12 months, things are distinct, correct? You are slashed, you are burned, poison is pumped into your veins. You say goodbye to 1 breast, potentially two, or just component of one if you are fortunate. Hopefully you recover. No more worrying about cancer, since you’ve already had it. Have a burger, why will not you?

But perhaps not. There was yet yet another piece of analysis on breast cancer last week, a research telling us, in the words of 1 headline author, that “breast cancer survivors ‘do not exercising enough’”. Exercising has been proven to help recovery, but a US examine identified that only 35% of women who had had the illness met the weekly guidelines for physical exercise – 150 minutes at reasonable intensity, or 75 at vigorous intensity.

As a person who has had breast cancer – and who hates the word “survivor” by the way – I understand, I actually do. Exercising is very good for you, cancer or no cancer. And the suggestions don’t appear particularly arduous – just in excess of twenty minutes a day of moderate physical exercise, like strolling.

But whilst I am familiar with pre-cancer scaremongering, the publish-cancer model is new. Lifestyle following cancer is difficult enough. Having the condition is the straightforward bit. That is in which you have a single goal: not to die of cancer. So you subject by yourself to the surgeries, the chemotherapy and the radiation, and right after it is all more than – and you are not dead, hopefully – it truly is time to move on and overlook it ever happened.

Except there is a unwanted fat opportunity of performing that. You get undressed and observe you are missing some or all of your breasts. An individual you haven’t observed for a while greets you with a amazed cry of “You look properly!”. A properly-meaning buddy emails you a link to an post about this kind of-and-this kind of creating cancer. And you go through stories telling you that you are not undertaking it proper.

I don’t need to be told I will not consider adequate exercising. I worry about that as it is. I fret that I’m not taking the drug my oncologist insists I ought to consider for five many years, simply because the horrible side-effects stop me. I worry I drink also considerably alcohol, and never consume sufficient greens. And with every single ache and soreness, each cough and cold – my stupid brain can not assist pondering that it might be the cancer returning.

I do not mean to propose that I am a crazed hypochondriac who spends every waking minute residing in fear of cancer. I have rebuilt my daily life, thank you very significantly, and any person who meets me nowadays would not have a clue I’d been ill. But these ideas rumble in the background, a quietly ominous soundtrack to this new phase of my life.

Cancer casts a lengthy shadow. And even though some folks want to run away from the shadow towards the light as speedily as achievable, other individuals really feel defeated by the darkness and sit down in the shade, not sure of what to do subsequent.

And you know what would aid with that? Opening the newspaper and reading through a headline, for as soon as, that says: “Well done for being alive. Why do not you go and have a beautiful glass of wine, and perhaps a pizza also?”

Twitter: @fayschopen

So you"ve beaten breast cancer. Some congratulations might be nice | Fay Schopen

The Sun"s breast cancer campaign is a self-interested and cynical ploy | Fay Schopen

Protests above the Sun’s Webpage three topless photographs. Photograph: AFP/Getty Photos

So did you check out ‘em? Because Rosie, 22, from Middlesex actually desired you to. It was Verify ‘em Tuesday this week, in accordance to the Sun, which as you will no doubt be mindful has cunningly aligned its use of half-naked girls on Page 3 to a breast cancer awareness charity. Well I for a single did not – because in the area of breasts, my physique is now graced with two lumps of silicone. I was diagnosed with breast cancer two and a half years in the past when I was 36, and have undergone a double mastectomy and a number of reconstruction surgeries since then.

So when I heard about the Sun’s initiative, I felt baffled. It seems churlish to object to a headline-grabbing campaign that urges millions of readers to check out their bodies routinely for the warning signs of breast cancer. But when I picked up a copy of the paper, my confusion gave way to an emotion now acquainted to me when confronted with the sight of nubile, healthful breasts – awkwardness.

The truth that we dwell in a highly sexualised society is really evident to the new, post-cancer me. I am dating a guy, for example, whose thought of an opening conversational gambit is to request me no matter whether I have seen the most current photographs of Miley Cyrus’s “wonderful tits”. When I flick through the Sun in my nearby pub, I cover Web page 3 with beer mats as I read through. And, despite the fact that my fake breasts search magnificent under clothes, naked they are scarred, mismatched and till my following surgical treatment, sporting just 1 (fake) nipple. So let us say I won’t be appearing on Web page 3 of the Sun any time soon.

Not like the aforementioned Rosie, of program, who on Tuesday, wearing only her pants, was resplendent the total length of the paper’s front web page, appearing again on Webpage three, exhibiting a nipple, as a lovely surprise. It’s only a short walk from the newsagent back home, but I was so embarrassed that I stopped halfway and folded the paper up to hide the front webpage.

The Sun’s front web page for its Check ‘em Tuesday campaign. Photograph: Information Worldwide

I have nothing but admiration for Kris Hallenga, the 28-yr-previous who founded CoppaFeel soon after becoming diagnosed with breast cancer aged 23 (nicely, apart from the name of her charity, which I dislike). But using provocative and extremely sexualised photos of glamour designs clutching their “boobs” to back a breast cancer awareness campaign grates on my nerves.

This campaign is practically nothing but a self-interested and cynical ploy by the newspaper, a childish way of hitting back at the growing chorus of anti-Page three voices. It’s akin to using breast cancer as a type of human shield. “Tits? Us? No, no, we’re saving tits.” Proper.

Almost 50,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each 12 months in the United kingdom. Hallenga’s story – her cancer wasn’t diagnosed until finally it was also late to halt its spread – is terrifying and heartbreaking in equal measures. But extremely couple of females are diagnosed with the illness in their teenagers or early 20s. The fact is that nearly half of all breast cancers are diagnosed submit-50. So the Sun’s focusing on of the under-35s is misguided at very best.

Yes, ladies need to verify their breasts. But we know this previously, will not we? Breast cancer, for better or worse, is the most very publicised of all cancers. My mom died of the condition aged 35 in 1985. She told only 1 shut buddy – cancer then was a massive taboo. I am confident she would be shocked by the publicity and the ubiquitous sea of pink that accompanies the ailment nowadays.

Gaby Hinsliff asserts that the campaign will possibly save lives, and envisages hordes of girls rushing home to check themselves. I doubt they will do this frequently, nevertheless, since we human beings are stupid we think we’re immortal. I lived in dread of breast cancer all through my 20s and early 30s. Then, when I reached 35, I felt like a large burden had been lifted. I missed my appointment for my annual mammogram and didn’t check my breasts really meticulously at all. When I was diagnosed I had three lumps in my correct breast. One was 4cm prolonged. I am an idiot.

I am all for anything that saves women’s lives, but please, let’s leave pretty young Rosie out of it.

The Sun"s breast cancer campaign is a self-interested and cynical ploy | Fay Schopen