Primary and Occupational Health Care Providers

Cancer survivors visit many different physicians and health care professionals. Contacts between cancer survivors and their primary care physicians or their occupational physicians are, however, not self-evident. Usually a patient goes to his or her primary care physician with complaints of first symptoms. Then, either a diagnosis is made in primary care or the patient is referred to a specialist in a hospital where the disease is diagnosed. From that time on, the focus of care is in the hospital with the surgeon, oncologist, and radiotherapist. Outpatient management of elements of this care have evolved as well over the years. Coordinating the care among these specialties is difficult enough, so one may wonder if there is still a role for the primary care physician.