Sid Acan

Review of Princess Margaret Cancer Cente...

This review is going to be tough. My mom's had ova...

This review is going to be tough. My mom's had ovarian cancer for the last three years and my following comments are completely exclusive of the fact that her illness is terminal. Over the last three years, I've been in numerous occasions at Princess Margaret where the oncology doctors have looked at my mom's most recent scans only 5 minutes before the appointment itself. Imagine this: my mom sits there waiting for 3 hours until she sees the doctor per her scheduled appointment, and all the oncology team does is feel her stomach, check her blood pressure, and then pick a completely un-customized, detrimental standard chemotherapy treatment.

What they'll do is run you through a bombardment of 'statistically proven' chemo drugs until the patient is nothing but skin and bones, and when they realize that isn't working, they'll try one of a very few available clinical trials, three whopping years later. No one actually sits down and ponders how and if the individual patient may benefit from tailored treatment methods.

Me and my mother were witness to this one terrible time where we went in for a clinical trial consultation and the trial doctor was completely unprepared and had no clue what my mom's CTs, bloodwork, and medical history were. After asking about what trial would be ideal for my mom, the doctor said "let me check your mom's history for a minute and I'll be back". Completely clueless.

We've had second opinions from other oncology departments after the 2nd year, and they told us that Princess Margaret should NOT have administered paclitaxel for so long, because it should have been known from the start that she was resistant to that chemo drug.

Overall, I'm disappointed. Princess Margaret may be a great research hospital, but it's treatment capabilities are severely lacking. I had so much faith in the doctors there, but now I've only lost faith in the hospital's supposed prowess, but also the Canadian medical system in general.