The Newly Rich

Finally! HavingThingsDone.com has begun doing tasks for readers of this blog who have shown interest. This post highlights the interaction between one of our assistants and one of you (Tara). The following task was completed this week.

Find Info On & Articles by Dr. Sema Kahn

Client

Time allotted for task: 60 minutes

Dr. Sema Kahn is a surgeon at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I have heard that she has written an article on doing mastectomies (removal of breast) in patients with metastatic (Stage IV) breast cancer.

Please do some web research (and academic library databases if you have access) to see if you can find this or other related (e.g., breast cancer, metastic breast cancer) articles and information about Dr. Sema Kahn.

Send me PDFs or links to articles and web pages as a summary.

Assistant

You can find all my research notes and references in this Google Notebook.

The first article, which I think is the one you are looking for is called “Does aggressive local therapy improve survival in metastatic breast cancer?” I was not able to find a copy of it through my university library. It is found in MEDLINE and the PMID is 12407345.

The second article, by the same author, “Does resection of an intact breast primary improve survival in metastatic breast cancer?” was available through my university. I want to be careful about circulating documents that have restricted access however. What is purpose of using the document, if this is one you are interested in?

Let me know what steps you would like taken from here, if any.

Best!

60/60 minutes used

Client

Thank you! I would love to see the article that you referenced at the end, and I appreciate your respect for the intellectual property represented by this article. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in school, so I don’t recall the appropriate uses of these databases…so please use your judgment and only send if the following fits the criteria.

My mother is a metastatic breast cancer patient and we are considering having her see Dr. Kahn for a consultation. The types of treatment that Dr. Kahn is researching are rather controversial in the medical field (some dr’s believe they can help, others feel it’s not worth it because the patients are terminal anyway). Since Dr. Kahn is doing this cutting edge research, I’d like to learn more about what she’s finding before making a decision to have my mother see her or not.

Thanks!

Client

Follow-up Question: I clicked on the link for the first article you referenced (”Does aggressive…”) but couldn’t find how to access the full article. Can you instruct me how to get to the full text of the article?
Thanks!

Assistant

Thanks for the info. I found an option that permitted emailing the document. You will find the the second article “Does resection of an intact breast primary improve survival in metastatic breast cancer?” attached as a pdf document.

RE: Follow-up Question
I’ll need to work on keeping the Google Notebooks a little cleaner and easier to follow. There was no available link to the full text version of the document as referenced in the Google Notebook; however, after digging a little more I found that you can access the first document. It’s a little patient research thing that allows the patient or friends/family to receive the document and print it off–includes a handling fee of $4.95. Click Here to begin accessing the article and follow the steps to have it sent to you. This should be a good route to go.

20 additional minutes were used.

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