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Some Considerations on a Patient’s Sense of Immortality: Bringing a Human Dimension to the Process

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Abstract

One of the most frequent, although widely understandable, reactions of people diagnosed with an incurable tumor is represented by incredulity, anger, and the denial of the impossibility of a definitive cure. Often, a picture of intense anxiety quickly takes over, overlapping the ever-growing collective hysteria of modern society, the result of a complex cultural mechanism in which technocracy often prevails over thought, introspection, and, in a broader sense, humanism. In this health drama, all actors often complain of formal inaccuracies while paying little attention to substantive ones. We argue that a more human emphatic patient-family-doctor relationship training to consider the undeniable progress of medicine and the fragility of all of us.

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Correspondence to Vittorio Gebbia.

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Gebbia, V., Cusumano, N., Piazza, D. et al. Some Considerations on a Patient’s Sense of Immortality: Bringing a Human Dimension to the Process. J Canc Educ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-024-02410-3

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