Whether you’ve just found out you have prostate cancer, or have been managing your prostate cancer for years, it can be a frightening, confusing experience. Who to turn to – which type of doctor should you see? How do you share with loved ones? Where can you find support and get unbiased information?

On this episode of PROSTATE PROS Dr. Scholz answers these common questions and guides listeners through what to consider when choosing a treatment team. The doctors, family, and support you have in your circle are major players in your prostate cancer journey. Set yourself up for treatment success by assembling a team that has your best interest at heart.

Dr. Scholz: Welcome to the PROSTATE PROS podcast, I’m Dr. Mark Scholz, here with my co host, Liz. We want to help guide men to treatment success so that they can become their own expert.

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Liz: OK, Dr. Scholz, this is a big topic.

Dr. Scholz: The idea of assembling an optimal treatment team.

Liz: Can we start with which kind of doctors should help?

Dr. Scholz: Yeah, that’s the easiest part. We only have a limited number of players. Everyone knows the urologist, of course, the surgeon who’s been managing this field now for 100 years. And then, in addition, just to summarize this quickly, we have radiation therapists, we have radiologists, those are the people that take the pictures, we have pathologists, the ones that look at biopsies. But that’s not the whole team. We also have family members, support groups, we have people that think they’ve been through this and they have all the answers. There’s a lot of people who get involved in this process.

Liz: Okay, so how should a new patient approach weeding out which opinions they should listen to?

Dr. Scholz: I think that’s a wonderful question because many times they don’t have all the choices you think they should. Prostate cancer is sort of a backwards industry. It’s the only type of cancer that surgeons are still in the primary care position. People say “How can this be?” All the other hundred cancers out there: breast cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, brain cancer. They are all managed by medical oncologists, specially trained doctors that only do cancer. Urology is sort of a throwback and this is a result of a time, 40 years ago, when all cancers were managed by surgeons. There was no other treatment back then. But technology has evolved so quickly now that as we see it in 2019, prostate cancer is the only one where the surgeons are still in control. Does that mean that you have to go to a surgeon for your care? No, not necessarily. The reason that surgeons take over care is because they are the ones that do the initial biopsy. After doing the biopsy, they’re the one who have to tell the patient whether they have cancer or not. People should be aware that centers are springing up all over the country that use targeted MRI biopsies. It is possible to be evaluated now, in this modern era, for a biopsy without seeing a urologist. Who’s going to take care of you in that scenario? Anybody that you choose. You can choose a medical oncologist, a radiation therapist, or a urologist. And of course a bottom line issue will be how much experience do they have treating prostate cancer.

Liz: So, in choosing a doctor, is it important that patients get second opinions to avoid bias?

Dr. Scholz: Absolutely. The issue of course, is that most patients are going to be diagnosed by a urologist. They’ll have undergone a random biopsy and they are going to be told in many cases that surgery is the best option. Urologists are surgeons. Patients need to be bold. And they need to be willing to ruffle feathers. Doctors and patients build very intimate relationships with one another. Now, no one wants to hurt anyone’s feelings. And I’ll have to confess as a doctor that some of us have a little bit more ego than they shou