Quotations from a professor turned patient

The Author: Professor Christopher Cheng is the CEO of Sengkang General Hospital and Senior Consultant Urologist at SGH and Singapore General Hospital. He is a pioneer in using robotics in prostate cancer surgery.

• I thought I knew about prostate cancer … I have done countless … cancer operation for the prostate. I thought I knew… until I became a patient myself, lying on a cold operating table one Saturday morning in December 2017.
• The reality is cancer can hit anyone.
• The naked truth of what I went through may be shocking to some who have been led to believe erroneously, that modern healthcare, will all its glamorous robots and high-tech equipment, has a solution to almost anything.
• Not all prostate cancers need to be cured or even treated and not all cancers that need treatment can be cured.
• The treatment should not be worse than the disease itself and often more treatment is not necessarily the answer.
• There are many both young and old who … believe that when the time comes, they can just check into the hospital and have everything fixed.
• We will take care of you, but you must take care of yourself too.
• (Doctors should) provide guidance and gentle nudges and support rather than coercion in their (patients) decision making … they are the ones who are on the operating table, they are the ones who have to live with the consequences.