Article: HEALTH CARE : MANAGED CARE: WHAT MANY PATIENTS DO NOT KNOW.(VIEWPOINT)

Byline: Mark Braly

I am sitting in front of a younger man in a white coat who is about to tell me that I have prostate cancer. The year is 1993. For the first time in our 15-month relationship - which included periodic digital rectal examinations - he seems ill at ease.

It's been almost two years since another Kaiser doctor first felt something suspicious on my prostate. Now I have to be told that they guessed wrong. They did find ``a little bit of cancer'' after all.

He tells me that since I'm only 57 and my cancer appears to be still curable, I am an ``ideal candidate'' for surgical removal of my prostate. That, he said, is the ``gold ...

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