How to Manage Uncertainty About a Treatment Plan

Making decisions about your health can be difficult. How can you be confident about which treatment plan is best? Two Keck Medicine of USC experts share their advice.

Ram Kiran Alluri, MD, orthopaedic surgeon, USC Spine Center

When there is a lack of trust in a treatment plan, the best thing you can do is get a second opinion. If the second opinion aligns with the first doctor’s recommendation, then it can help give you more confidence that the right course of action is being implemented.

If the second opinion vastly diverges, then it can give you more information about options, and you can decide what works best for you.

In spine surgery especially, there are many different ways to treat the same problem.

A patient’s comfort with a treatment plan is probably the most critical aspect of successful patient care.

Ram Kiran Alluri, MD

At a multidisciplinary clinic, like the USC Spine Center, you can get opinions and consultations with practitioners from a variety of specialties. It is very common for me to send my patients to get a second opinion from one of my neurosurgery colleagues or to get an opinion regarding nonoperative treatment from my interventional colleagues.

A patient’s comfort with a treatment plan is probably the most critical aspect of successful patient care. The best thing to do if you are not comfortable with the first treatment plan offered to you is to tell your doctor about your concerns and seek more information from multiple sources.

Frances Chow, MD, neuro-oncologist, USC Brain Tumor Center

Uncertainty is very common, especially in the beginning, when you don’t know what to expect with prognosis or how treatments may make you feel. Cancer is a frightening diagnosis, but our goal is to work with you to help you feel confident about the future.

Educate yourself about your tumor and your options. Cancer diagnoses and treatments can be complex. Your treatment team’s role is to share information, answer the hard questions and guide you through each step.

“Once you get into a routine…what was once unfamiliar, uncertain and frightening suddenly becomes a set of more manageable tasks.”

Frances Chow, MD

Focus on what you can control by setting small goals that are achievable. Every task is an accomplishment, whether it’s waking up in the morning, making yourself a meal or putting in the effort to go outside and take time for yourself.

Once you get into a routine, such as going to radiation every morning or taking daily chemotherapy pills, what was once unfamiliar, uncertain and frightening suddenly becomes a set of more manageable tasks.

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