ROJoson’s Patients Saved from Unnecessary Breast Operations – 2001 (#5)
Bethsaida de la Cruz – an Admirable Patient on Breast Health
This is Bethsaida de la Cruz, one of my admirable patients.
Bethsaida de la Cruz, from Nasugbu, Batangas, has been seeing me for the past 11 years and 3 months for breast check. In February, 2001, when she was 55 years old then, she was told to have a breast operation. She consulted me for a second opinion. I told her she just had a fibrocystic breast condition and that she did not need an operation. I advised her monitoring and check-up. Since then, she has been doing monthly breast self-examination as I taught her and she has been seeing me every 3 months without fail to have her breast self-examination findings checked by me. Despite the fact that I told her she could see me for a breast check at a longer interval, as she lives in Nasugbu, she would still insist on the 3-month interval. Since she has to come all the way from Batangas, I decided to give her my cellphone number and advised her to call me a day before coming to make sure I am around when she comes for check-up. I have not done any mammography or ultrasound, just physical examination of her breasts for the past 11 years. I last saw her on August 31, 2012 and she had no evidence of breast disorder or disease. Bethsaida is now 67 years old. An admirable patient of mine indeed.
Bethsaida is one of the patients I saved from an unnecessary breast operations.
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History of ROJoson’s Project:
ROJoson’s Patients Saved from Unnecessary Breast Operations – June 23, 2012 (Start of Registry)
Today, June 23, 2012, I had a patient, Elizabeth_C, 40s, a sewer, whom I saved from an unnecessary breast operation. She had a macrocyst which I just aspirated. Prior to seeing me, she was advised by another physician to have a breast operation. No doubt, as a result of what I did, she was very thankful to me as I saved her from an unnecessary breast operation.
I have experienced a lot of this kind of situation before, that is, patients advised to have breast operations but which to me are not necessary, either just a needle aspiration is needed or the patient just has a fibrocystic breast condition, which is considered normal.
Today, June 23, 2012, I start a project dubbed as “Patients Saved from Unnecessary Breast Operations.” I will make a registry of patients whom I have saved from unnecessary breast operations. The main inclusion criterion will be those patients who were previously advised to have a breast operation (one that is more than a needle evaluation and aspiration with or without biopsy) and after my evaluation, I decided it is not needed and the patient appreciated my recommendation. I will target a total of 50 patients in the registry. I can backtrack, meaning those patients that I have saved from unnecessary breast operations even before June 23, 2012 can be included in the registry.
This will be another legacy that I will leave behind for my patients. The other one that I have started in December 2011 is the ROJoson’s Cancer Survivors in which I am also using “50″ as a target. As of June 2, 2012, I already have 36 survivors in the registry, 14 to go.
The ROJoson’s Cancer Survivors and the ROJoson’s Patients Saved from Unnecessary Breast Operations will be one of my end-points in which I can say I have lived a life that matters.
ROJoson Medical Clinic 