ANOTHER HANSEN FAN, DOCTOR HANSEN

Dr. Hansen is originally from Portland, OR. He enjoys hiking, outdoor activities, and sports with his wife, 3 children, and dog. He is a technology enthusiast, book lover, and fan of the Trailblazers, Timbers, Thorns, and athletes throughout Oregon.

This is a doctor engaged in life, not death. It’s important when you start feeling like death warmed over during radiotherapy cancer treatment.

He’s brimming over with repressed enthusiasm and it’s contagious.

What about this book he edits?

Building on the success of this book’s first edition, Dr. Eric Hansen and Dr. Mack Roach have updated, revised, and expanded the Handbook of Evidence-based Radiation Oncology, a portable reference that utilizes evidence-based medicine as the basis for practical treatment recommendations and guidelines.

Reading a book is one thing. Reading it, digesting the information, then writing a guide, is a whole ‘nother thing.

Organized by body site, concise clinical chapters provide easy access to critical information. Important “pearls” of epidemiology, anatomy, pathology, and clinical presentation are highlighted. Key facets of the work-up are listed, followed by staging and/or risk classification systems.

You need all the faith you’ve got to strap onto a radiation table with your head bolted down.

Is it the right thing? Was I doing the best I could?

I asked Doctor Hansen and he answered with a complete response.

Treatment recommendations are discussed based on stage, histology, and/or risk classification. Brief summaries of key trials and studies provide rationale for the recommendations. Practical guidelines for radiation techniques are described.

One thing to watch for is people who leave the decision making up to the patient. That’s how it always is, right?

No, not always. I could have declined treatment, but the challenge was taking it and doing something with it. Like blog, like books, like speaking out.

Doctor’s orders.

Finally, complications and follow-up guidelines are outlined. Updates from the first edition include brand new color figures and color contouring mini-atlases for head and neck, gastrointestinal, prostate, and gynecological tumors; redesigned tables for increased readability; new chapters on management of the neck and unknown primary, clinical radiobiology, and pediatric malignancies and benign conditions; and new appendices including the American College of Radiology guidelines for administration of IV contrast.

For a specialist, Doctor Hansen has a pretty broad scope.

But it’s all related to cancer cure and positive outcomes.

This is when it comes down to believing you’ve got the right guy for the job.

If he reads you correctly, he says things that push the sort of buttons that need pushing.

He read me like a pro, like a coach, when he said, “I don’t know why you keep postponing treatment. Your tumor isn’t going to go away on it’s own.”

That was all the push I needed. See, I was running scared, running from cancer, running from the reality of my wife’s colleagues who chose a different treatment for their HPV16 tongue cancer.

And died.

If you wonder what it feels like to be scared shitless, cancer does the trick. And I was a quiet bag of terror looking at the near future.

Guys like Doctor Hansen ease the fear with a backlog of knowledge deeper than Crater Lake.

He worked with me, and more important, my wife. When doctors take time to address the support people, they reach gold status.

Stay golden, Doctor Hansen. You wear it well.