Docs who Specialize vs Docs who Customize

I am in complete agreement with Stan Adler's approach to treatment. He states on the Melanoma Research Foundation site that:

"The key for me was to identify the treatment sequence I would follow if the previous treatment failed. In my opinion, doctors seem to specialize in or favor specific treatment options. To me, choosing my doctor first meant limiting the number of treatment options I could access. So I decided instead to research the treatment sequence I wanted to pursue and then find the best doctors I could to implement them."

My own experience has also led me to believe that survival rates will increase when we can truly customize treatments for cancer patients. It looks like the UK-based Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is bringing us closer to customization. They just cataloged the genetic maps of skin and lung cancer and have pinpointed the specific mutations within DNA that can lead to tumors. Scientists found that the DNA code for skin cancer contained nearly 30,000 errors. Researchers predict these maps will offer patients a personalized treatment option that ranges from earlier detection to the types of medication used to treat cancer. The genetic maps will also allow cancer researchers to study cells with defective DNA and produce more powerful drugs to fight the errors, according to the the study's scientists.

The challenge is how to find the right sequence of melanoma treatments from the right doctors'/clinics' specializations that can keep me alive long enough for a customized treatment to be developed. Of course then there is the issue of how to find the melanoma docs who become more interested in customizing treatment based on individual patients' needs rather than in specializing to find "the" cure. The reality is that we won't progress without both kinds of docs.

So I am headed to Rush Medical on Thursday to develop a treatment sequence with a doc who advocates "getting the latest advances coming out of research institutions into" cancer patients. He is a Head Researcher for an immunotherapy that I want to try but also has experience with a variety of treatments that might keep me alive until customized treatment is a reality. Guess it is game time!