Here is the answer to the question of why Steve Jobs procrastinated about his pancreatic cancer.
I have seen this so many times. One instancewas a young GP who I remembered from the time he was an intern at LA County. He was convinced of the merits of Alternative Medicine. It was sort of a hippie thing. Remember, I finished my surgery training in 1971.
A few years later, he was practicing his version of medicine in Mission Viejo, an unlikely place. He turned up in my office one day close to Christmas. He was having symptoms and wanted me to examine him. The findings showed a large mass in his abdomen. It turned out to be an advanced cancer of the small intestine. These are rare and early diagnosis would probably not have helped. What shocked and distressed me was learning that he did not have any insurance, of any kind. I didn’t charge doctors for care in those days so it didn’t affect me but he didn’t even have life insurance ! He was married and, I believe, he had children.
Steve Jobs’ family will be well cared for but he passed up the best chance he had to be there for them another 20 years by his belief in magical thinking. I suspect his politics may have been affected, as well.
Tags: health care, medicine
Do you mean ‘magical thinking’ as in the ‘magic realism’ of our novelist friends to the south? I’ve heard that he had some sort of neuroendocrine neoplasm rather than the usual adenocarcinoma, but I have not heard whether it was localized to begin with.
The neuroendocrine tumors are generally far less aggressive and I have read that his was localized. One of the saddest cases of my career was an older guy who had one of these tumors that was resectable. I did a Whipple procedure on him and wanted him to begin chemotherapy. Unfortunately, he developed diverticulitis post-op and we couldn’t start the treatment. By the time we could treat him, his cancer had progressed and he eventually died of it.
Jobs’ tumor, from what I have read, was less advanced.
Celebrity medicine can be fascinating. I remember the prevailing wisdom at the time of Eleanor Roosevelt’s death, but later information suggested that her care was not nearly as bad as we thought it was.
Everyone makes a big deal about how he was a college dropout, and I agree that often education is an inhibiting rather than liberating factor for entrepreneurs…BUT this action of his reminds me of people in my life who are susceptible to CAM: usually have high school or less, and tend to believe some quack notion because it Makes sense when you think about it! But laymen’s intutions, based in ignorance, usually don’t account for the complexity of the body’s mechanisms.
Maybe if Jobs had actually finished college with a science major, this would have come out differently? or maybe not.
My theory is that the worst medical care is that received by the rich. Next, comes the poor. The rich are often willful and able to convince doctors to do things they might not do otherwise. The trial of the Michael Jackson doctor is a perfect example.
Eleanor Roosevelt was treated for leukemia when she really had a leukemoid reaction to another disease. John Kennedy was given amphetamines. Richard Nixon was nearly admitted to out hospital when he was staying in San Clemente. My partner and I gave a sigh of relief when he went to Long Beach Memorial. There, the vascular surgeon ligated one iliac vein for his deep vein phlebitis. That procedure is NEVER done, as it creates a chronically swollen leg. The exception, I guess, is on celebrities.
Its amazing that a man of such intelligence would choose to ignore reality in a life threatening situation such as this. It reminds me of the parents who refuse to vaccinate their children. By the way Mike, I wonder what your thoughts are on the forced vaccine for teenage girls in Texas that got Governor Perry in such hot water!
The HPV vaccine is a controversial topic. One argument is the fact that Hispanic women are very reluctant to have pap smears. A group at UCI did a study that showed a definite trend. Their conclusion was that Hispanic women are well aware that cervical cancer is associated with promiscuity.. To ask for a pap smear is to admit you have been promiscuous. The push for HPV vaccine may have been in reaction to this resistance to standard care. Of course, they won’t admit it.
The mortality among Hispanic women from cervical cancer is quite high. There was a lawsuit in Orange County a few years ago against a doctor from the family of a woman who died of cervical ca. They sued him in spite of the fact that she refused a pap smear. He didn’t argue with her enough, you see.
well it wouldn’t be the first time that a fix intended for a minority was inflicted on the entire population.