For biopsy results for potential cancer? About 30 seconds. In New Zealand you get to wait 10 days, unless for breast cancer where the wait currently is 5 days. This five day turnaround is now under fire due to errors by pathologists who are rushing to get their job done.
Where I go for treatment, a biopsy is usually available in a few days - sometimes longer for other cancers. I have learned they usually tell me it will take about a week but often I hear much sooner.
There are two sides of the waiting for results issue. First comes the patient who wants the results in a nano-second. (Thank you to Amazon to training the public to expect everything instantly.) Patients don't want to wait. Waiting causes stress. Waiting causes crankiness AND crabbiness. Waiting causes that little voice in your head to tell you that it will be really BAD,
But on the other side are the pathologists who need the time to do their jobs. We don't want them to rush and make mistakes - which is what happened in New Zealand (which is why there was an article on this that I read). That is really BAD.
However I find the idea of waiting 10 days for a biopsy result to be too damn long.
1 comment:
Recently, I waited 13. very. long. days. in the US. The doc had the results on day 7 but only gives them in person. I was not happy. results benign. will not have another biopsy from that surgeon.
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