- Hi, my name is Jennifer Bethune.

I'm a nurse with Nashville General Hospital.

On today's "For Your Good Health", we're gonna talk about the importance of making the most out of your oncology visit.

(light music) Follow up appointments are extremely important because once the cancer treatment is over, you wanna continue the follow up to make sure that there is no signs of recurrence.

The follow up visits, they mostly consist of labs as well as imaging.

So the doctor may give a CT or MRI.

The patient may be concerned, however, this is just general practice based on what's type of cancer and what stage they're in.

So this is, this has become routine.

So that's the way the doctor would make sure everything's okay.

Keep the patient calm, let the patient know that everything is at bay.

During your appointments, any questions or any signs and symptoms you may have after your treatment, that's the best place to ask the questions.

The most important thing that I want to add that is let our patients know there is no such thing as a dumb question.

Patients feel intimidated when they come to their visits.

We just want them to feel comfortable enough to ask any question.

Write down any question you may have.

We ask that the, we ask that you bring a family member with you pretty much to every visit 'cause it's important and there's so much information being provided by the physician.

You may not remember or maybe not be able to obtain or retain all that information.

I would also write down all, all your medications.

Sometimes you get additional medications from other specialists, so you wanna make sure that we have that continuum of care and all the physicians are in on your treatment plan.

A lot of people are starting to go back to work after their treatment, so they wanna know how many hours can they work, is it safe to do whatever they're doing as far as what their profession is.

Any question that you have that may affect your normal average life, your normal life, that your daily life that you go through as far as work, family, kids, traveling, those are definitely questions that you want to ask during your visits.

We don't want our patients to feel though, once the treatment is done that we're done or they won't see us again.

You still have this family, you still have this oncology team, and we want them to know you can still come to us for any questions that you may have.

And we're always here for 'em to make sure that they continue to have a joyful, peaceful, and live the best life they possibly can.

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