The Activist Cancer Patient: How to Take Charge of Your Treatment [Paperback]

Beverly Zakarian (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 047112026X | ISBN-13: 978-0471120261 | Publication Date: April 18, 1996 | Edition: 1

Improve Your Odds of Surviving Cancer

Cancer survivor Beverly Zakarian knows firsthand that you can improve your odds of surviving cancer if you take an active role in your treatment. Now, you too can discover the benefits of taking charge. After all, you and your disease are unique, and so is your path to good health. Even the most caring of doctors needs your help to determine which treatment is best for you.

With this inspiring, practical book, Beverly Zakarian gives you step-by-step guidelines that will empower you to work with your doctor and within the medical system to find the most effective treatment options. Armed with the resources in this book, you'll be able to use activist techniques to:
* Talk intelligently with your physician and make informed decisions
* Research state-of-the-art treatments
* Understand how drug trials actually work
* Discover what "experimental treatment" really means
* Search out relevant medical journals and access reliable databases
* Enlist the help of medical specialists and support groups

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Zakarian, a cancer survivor and executive director of Cancer Patients Action Alliance (CAN-ACT), a nonprofit advocacy group, writes movingly about her own experience with cancer and her difficulties in receiving appropriate therapy. Her book teaches advocacy skills, empowering patients to insist on needed care through communication, understanding, and knowledge of the medical system. Zakarian also identifies resources for state-of-the-art information and clinical trials, explaining how such trials work and delineating the risks involved with unproven drugs. Zakarian gives tips on acquiring "orphan" or foreign drugs, advises on what to do if treatment is denied by a patient's HMO, and defines and encourages the use of social and emotional support groups. An essential purchase for healthcare collections.
Janet M. Schneider, James A. Haley Veterans Hosp., Tampa, Fl.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Publisher

One in three Americans will be diagnosed with cancer during his or her lifetime. Many patients, frightened by the diagnosis, surrender themselves completely to their doctor's control and become only marginally involved in the decision-making process and management of their own treatment. Cancer survivor Beverly Zakarian asserts that cancer patients can greatly increase their survival chances by taking an active role in their treatment. This book educates cancer patients on locating sources of legitimate cancer treatments that run the gamut from little-known ones to the very latest experimental therapies or drug trials. Based on her own experience and extensive research, the author discusses working constructively with a doctor, researching and evaluating treatment, and gaining access to the state-of-the-art and even experimental treatments.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 18, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047112026X
• ISBN-13: 978-0471120261
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,510,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Invaluable New Resource!, January 2, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Activist Cancer Patient: How to Take Charge of Your Treatment (Paperback)

I just read an extraordinary new book and I'd like to share my thoughts with you. "The Activist Cancer Patient" by Beverly Zakarian is an important new book and anyone with cancer should own this unique and exceptional resource. Ms. Zakarian, a cancer survivor, has written a moving, inspirational, and practical aid for cancer patients. While "empowerment" is the main theme, "The Activist Cancer Patient" is also a step-by-step guide on how to improve your odds of surviving cancer. It teaches people - in the midst of crisis - how to become activists for their own most effective cancer treatment, how to gain access to the newest therapies, and suggests how they can apply what they've learned to the public arena - and why they must! It provides numerous resources for getting the information needed to become informed, empowered, effective patients. Be your own advocate. "It's your life... you need to fight for it!" I know that millions of people would benefit greatly from "The Activist Cancer Patient." It's truly a "Life-Aid!" Elana Hayden

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Can Do Patient, May 7, 2008

By 

See A Cure "Eye Cancer Nonprofit" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Activist Cancer Patient: How to Take Charge of Your Treatment (Paperback)

In 1985, Beverly Zakarian was a wife, a mother to a 15-year old girl, and a newly diagnosed patient with Stage 3 ovarian cancer. She lost her uterus to surgery and her hair to chemotherapy, but she found her passion for patient empowerment.

Zakarian learned the hard way a lesson that has now become a touchstone in successful cancer treatment - that patients must take an active role in their cancer care. Her experience with the "don't ask, don't tell" medical establishment, confusing federal bureaucracies and unresponsive insurance companies, led her to found the Cancer Patients Action Alliance.

Instead of being a care-based group by providing access to services, emotional support and other important but reactive resources, Zakarian and CAN-ACT advocated direct patient action via political, social and personal agendas.

Her book, published one year before her death in 1997, still speaks with the fire of an evangelist. Many of the chapters were written before the large scale availability of Internet-based resources. Ironically, the outmoded chapters support Zakarian's argument in the transformative power of information.

This ground-breaking work is a historical reference point to the birth of the cancer-patient advocacy movement. It also provides an excellent overview of the mind-boggling and multi-agency drug approval process required for cancer treatment.

Zakarian's most enduring vision - and what keeps this book relevant today - is that life and death decisions belong to the community most impacted by the disease. And by organizing, cancer patients can be an important voice not only in the conversation, but in their outcome.