“Dr Kathleen Thompson’s foray into combining medical and patient “expertise” results in a tight but still emotionally evocative journey through her experience of breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. The book – deliberately – exposes a key issue facing patients going though any such experience (which could apply to all illness), namely, how do you take control of your patient experience to ensure you get the best treatment?

Some tough issues are addressed, such as how can you possibly hope to understand what is going on? Ms Thompson, a former paedetrician and medical researcher, was often herself stunned into incomprehension of what was being said to her.

How do you insist on the treatment you want and need, how do you get a second opinion? If communication is a big part of the challenge of overcoming illness, how do we begin to communicate accurately, over all the technicality and the panic, to get to the best possible decision?

Thompson presents a controversial and poignant description of her fight to get the surgery procedure she wanted for herself, after originally being rejected for her preferred operation by the well-tailored consultant “Miss Gomez”. Throughout the book there is a good balance of crunchy breast cancer-related medical advice and human detail from her case history.

The book raises many questions moving forward. After reading the book, I wondered if it might be possible to record medical consultations so patients could go over again what had been said. Thompson herself says that in Britain patients are notoriously submissive about questioning medical advice; perhaps at least summaries of what is being said, akin to the summaries she offers at the end of each chapter, could get the ball rolling, assuming of course the lawyers can be kept at bay.“

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“My friend said it was like you were inside her head. She had planned to write about her experience as she went along, even bought a journal, but as things unfolded she said she just couldn’t write, instead she chose to spend her time with her daughters and husband.  However when she read your book she said “she has written my book for me, it’s amazing, things I was thinking and thoughts that I had.” I know my friend really well and I know she meant this. It was very moving to hear. ”

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“Many of you will be familiar with Frost Magazine’s Dr Kathleen Thompson’s regular health features, which are topical, succinct accessible and helpful.
It is no surprise, therefore, that Dr Kathleen Thompson brings just the same skills to From Both Ends Of The Stethoscope – Getting through breast cancer – by a doctor who knows.
This guide should be read by anyone with cancer, or given to anyone we know with the disease. Not only that, it should be read by relatives who are suddenly thrust into a unexpected supportive role, which leaves them as confused and upset as the patient.
In the guide, Dr Kathleen Thompson has the courage to use her personal experiences of breast cancer to explore the situation. She acknowledges not only her reluctance to face up to the symptoms, but her initial fear and confusion as she adjusted to this change in her fortunes.
As a medical insider, she reflects and applies her understanding of the medical procedures brought to bear to counteract the progress of the disease. She suggests the questions patients could, or perhaps should ask. She explains the possible treatments, (remember, that knowledge is power).
This is the key to the guide, it seemed to me: it is important for the patient to take control of the situation, and for the relatives to support this stance. To control a situation you need education because education leads to knowledge, which leads to power. Here I must acknowledge the fantastic Andy McNabb, who made this suggestion in a talk he gave. I thought it profound, and use it often.
Indeed, everyone should keep it as a mantra.I loved, particularly, the chapter on how patients manipulate the staff to achieve, or not, the results they require – read it, learn, and laugh.
Sensibly laid out, each chapter is easy to navigate. In other words, it won’t be too much or too difficult for those under stress.
Importantly, the author explains medical research, and how to assess the credibility of the numerous cancer treatment claims, and what we can all do to protect ourselves from cancer.

This is an important book, in either e-book or paperback.”

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“Having had two close family members diagnosed with breast cancer, I was looking for a book which would explain more and answer the myriad of questions I had. This book seemed to fit the bill, a book about breast cancer, written by a doctor who had experienced it. Having read it, I find this book offers so much more. It certainly gives me the hard facts of the diagnosis; the disease and the treatments, which I needed to know, but it is also a personal story of a woman’s journey through the stages of her treatment. Kathleen talks of her emotions during that journey from diagnosis; through her battle to get the right treatment and her personal experience of the operations and radiotherapy. She leaves the reader with no doubt that this is a serious condition with necessary yet unpleasant treatments, but that there is hope and you must take control; ask the right questions and challenge to get the most positive outcome. Whilst serious in the information this book delivers, it does also include some amusing observations about her experiences and those she met along the way, making it a good and easy read. This book has helped me so much to make some sense of what a diagnosis of breast cancer really means. Highly recommended.”

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