I’m a cancer doctor… here’s what I got wrong about the disease until I was diagnosed myself

Dr Catherine Sue Hwang had treated dozens of patients with breast cancer and felt she knew everything there was about the disease.

So it was a complete shock when, despite having no symptoms or family history of the disease, a routine mammogram found five masses in her right breast.

The 46-year-old, from Florida, went from being a radiation oncologist at a major Breast Radiation Oncology center in Orlando to one of its patients.

She had both her breasts removed, several rounds of chemotherapy, radiation, and then more surgery to have her uterus and ovaries taken out to fight off the disease.

She was left battling hair loss, hot flashes, and weight gain that she could not shift — and struggling after being told she had a 15 percent chance of not surviving to 2035.

Now, Dr Hwang has revealed how being a patient — rather than the doctor — has revealed to her that much of the advice doctors give to patients can be ‘insensitive’ and has left her feeling guilty.

One example she gave was advice that doctors hand out telling patients with the cancer to shave their heads in order to feel like they are ‘in control’ of the disease.

She said this was just one of the many things that doctors should rethink telling patients.

Writing a guest essay for the HuffPost, she said: ‘I spent the past 15 years of my life as a practicing radiation oncologist and considered myself a cancer expert.

‘[But] by being on the arena floor and fighting this terrible disease as a patient, I have become a more effective doctor who does not lose focus of the patients’ humanity.’

Using the head-shaving advice as an example, she said: ‘As a physician, I encouraged patients to shave their head to regain control,’ she wrote, ‘as a patient [however], I could never bring myself to actually do it’.

‘Despite looking ridiculous with a huge bald spot, I found comfort in preserving the hair that remained on my head, as it represented the person I was precancer — a person I was unsure I would ever find again.’

She also told how she had previously ‘passed judgment’ on women who had refused chemotherapy to preserve their hair, thinking of them as preserving vanity over their own lives. 

But now she said she understood their position.

‘The temporary loss of my hair impacted my self-esteem more than the permanent loss of my breasts,’ she said.

‘As someone who was always known for having an amazing head of hair, I struggled greatly.’

She also slammed the diet plans she had previously given breast cancer patients who were struggling with weight gain.

Breast cancer treatment can trigger the menopause because it causes shifts in hormone levels, with a side-effect of the change being weight gain.

Dr Hwang, who measures 5ft 8in, gained 10lbs during her treatment — an amount that she found impossible to shift despite following the diet plan she had given to patients.

‘I now understood my patients’ frustrations and felt extremely guilty for faulting them when they didn’t see results,’ she said.

Dr Hwang also wrote about how she had previously dismissed patients with low-risk cancer who were worried about their death, often telling them they probably wouldn’t die or that their cancer, if it returned, would be picked up via routine scans.

But when her own diagnosis came, and she was given an 85 percent chance of surviving the next ten years, she said that — with three sons — this was nowhere near high enough.

‘The insensitivity of past comments I’ve made to patients became glaringly clear,’ she said.

‘While I did not have low-risk disease, I can now relate to that desire to exhaust all options to get the best possible outcome because cancer is scary.’

Dr Hwang was diagnosed with breast cancer last year following a routine mammogram and ultrasound, with mammograms recommended every two years for women from 40 to 75 years old.

She was first treated with a bilateral mastectomy — or operation to remove both breasts — which doctors said would likely be the end.

But afterward, it emerged that her cancer appeared to have spread — with Dr Hwang then being signed on for chemotherapy and radiation.

Two weeks after her mastectomies, she returned to work — following advice that she would give patients that they should return to their routines to try to manage mental concerns over the diagnosis.

She then had her uterus and ovaries removed to help manage the symptoms, and will now be on maintenance treatment for 15 years. Her cancer is now in remission.

Dr Hwang works at AdventHealth Cancer Institute in Orlando.

About 272,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the US every year, a number that has risen by about one percent a year since 2012 — even as deaths have fallen with 42,000 estimated to be caused this year.

Doctors have blamed a range of factors from more women being overweight to exposure to pesticides for the uptick in rates.

Most patients have their cancer diagnosed at stage one or two, where it is easier to treat as it has not spread and about 93 percent live longer than five years.

Women are told to get mammograms every other year from the ages of 40 to 74 years to check for breast cancer cells.