The Value of Patient Cases

PracticeUpdate: What are some formats in which patient cases are discussed?

Dr. Grant: So, I think there are many different formats nowadays as well. I think in the hospital setting, there's conversations that happen between physicians. There are tumor board discussions that happen in the clinical setting. And then out of the hospital setting or clinic setting, there are now just an ever-increasing number of places or venues to talk about patient cases. Some of these are social media and other organizations that put out round table discussions where virtually physicians get together to talk about, I think, interesting cases that highlight areas of either lack of data or information or just bread and butter things that can help with everyday practice. I think the other venue or at least place that I've been enjoying listening to patient cases and thinking through them myself has been via podcasts.

Case-based podcasts

This started when I was in medical training in internal medicine and found some really interesting case-based podcasts that deal with just a broad range of topics in internal medicine. And now too, where I focus on oncology, there are certain podcasts that I listen to that also have these case-based discussions. And it's one of these things that can really be done right and can be extremely informative. I'm thinking really along the lines of difficult areas of pretty routine clinical practice that lack data, and those are the ones that I find the most interesting because there are physicians and other medical experts that come together and may have entirely different beliefs on how to manage patients in those situations. And then there are also just case reviews and case reports that come out in major journals that can also highlight these important issues and highlight different or diverse practices surrounding those issues.

I listen to Research To Practice. I think it's done with Neil Love, who hosts them. And he's been doing this for a really long time and is well connected in the field, so often has really interesting experts in different fields. So, this focuses on oncology. So, it's lung cancer experts, GU medical oncology experts. And these are often done at or they're hosted at conferences. So, Research To Practice will have a venue or a panel where they get people up on stage and discuss cases. And those are really interesting because I think somehow he has just a very broad oncology knowledge and is very good at navigating those conversations.

PracticeUpdate: What is the value of case presentations?

Dr. Grant: I think the case presentations have obvious value when discussed as a community. I think patients really teach you and tell you what's going on, and I think there are just an infinite number of valuable learning patient cases out there. That being said, I think that it definitely is something that more people can extract information from certain patient cases, so there is an art to going through cases and taking really valuable learning points. I think the other thing that I wouldn't want to miss at this point is whenever case discussions happen, I think they inevitably benefit patients, and it may be the patient that's being discussed if we're talking about a patient case that is developing currently, but it may also just be that somebody that ends up hearing about the case or that's participating in the case discussion learns about a patient that they have that really is very similar or has similar aspects. So I think it serves two purposes. It educates clinicians, but it also helps patients, whether they're being discussed or they're benefiting from the discussion that happens.