By: David T. Rubin, MD
My colleagues and I are open-minded about new options and humbled by the complexity of the diseases that we face in our field and, while we champion the successes we have achieved with new therapies and the ability to substantially improve the quality of life of many of our patients, we frequently remind our colleagues and the pharmaceutical industry that there is still a long way to go.
While we wait for the next breakthroughs, we must use what we have available, be humble in the face of illness and suffering, and we must embrace optimism and hope in our care of the patient.
Hope is a critical component of the complete care of a patient. We communicate and convey hope when we discuss a diagnosis and a treatment plan. We hope that the recommended treatment will be effective, hope that the disease will achieve remission, and hope that whatever relief is achieved restores the quality of life that has been taken.
Fortunately, there have never been more reasons to have hope for our current and near future treatments of digestive diseases. Our teams at UChicago Medicine and in collaboration with other brilliant minds around the world are hard at work looking for new solutions.