S1 Ep219: Navigating Personality Disorders in Cancer Care
About this episode
The episode discusses the impact of personality disorders on cancer care and offers actionable advice for oncology teams.
Cancer is never convenient, and it never arrives when a patient is truly prepared, according to Daniel C. McFarland, DO, who began the most recent episode of Oncology On the Go with this sentiment. When individuals enter the high-stakes, highly coordinated world of oncology, they do so under extreme duress, often presenting the versions of themselves that are most under stress. In this environment, clinical teams frequently encounter behaviors that get unfairly lumped into the vague and pejorative category of the “difficult patient.” What happens when these challenges stem from an underlying personality disorder rather than just temporary situational anxiety? In this episode, McFarland was joined by psycho-oncology expert Kaleena Chilcote, MD, to unpack the inner workings of personality styles and disorders within oncologic science. Together, they explored the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders (DSM) diagnostic framework, spanning the eccentric, dramatic, and anxious categories. They discussed how these enduring, pervasive traits impact a patient’s health care journey. Shifting the conversation away from the stigma of labels, McFarland and Chilcote…
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