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"I guess I have to say this, but you're going to be all right. If this is breast cancer, it's the earliest kind we know." His words are meant to reassure, but I almost burst into tears. I am a 39-year-old physician who has just had a screening mammogram, having waited to engage in the procedure about as long as a physician who recommends it to her patients can wait. My surgeon is the most trustworthy I know, someone kind and thoughtful, a superb clinician, a good communicator. There is no mass and he wishes to review the films with the radiologist before making the decision as to whether surgery is necessary. But I am a student of the medical interview. I know surgery will be recommended. I think over and over, what is it about his words that is so upsetting to me? I try to dissect their meaning.
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Marian R. Block (1987) studied this question.
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