Ep 134: Aligning patients' expectation with reality with Dr. Kimberly Kopecky

The latest BOSS podcast features Dr. Kimberly Kopecky, a surgical oncologist researching the importance of aligning patients' expectations with reality in the context of cancer surgery.  

Dr. Kopecky shares her background and motivation for pursuing surgical oncology and palliative medicine training to better communicate with patients and understand their values and expectations.  

We talked about shared decision-making, eliciting patient preferences, addressing misunderstandings, and the challenges of managing expectations, particularly in cancer surgery where patients may not feel they have a choice.  

Dr. Kopecky highlights the need to complement shared decision-making with an explicit focus on aligning expectations and describes her ongoing research efforts to capture patients' experiences and incorporate them into preoperative discussions.  

The conversation also touches on the reluctance to study patient regret and the importance of open communication about potential outcomes and complications.