Mentor Assessment #2

Bekah Armstrong

Name of Mentor: ​Dr. Carlos Taboada

Profession:​ Medical Oncologist

Location and Business Name:​ Texas Oncology - Plano East

3705 West 15th St.

Plano, TX 75075

Date of Mentor Visit:​ February 17, 2020

Time:​ 9:00 AM

Assessment:

After completing my second mentor visit with Dr. Taboada I now have a better

understanding of what interpersonal skills I need to possess as a medical oncologist to be

successful in the field. During this second shadowing visit, I was able to learn more about how to

properly interact with patients. I was able to observe Dr. Taboada in his work to understand how

to properly interact with patients during their follow-up visits to ensure that they are comfortable

during the entire experience and have all of their questions properly addressed. This second

shadowing visit has prompted me to greatly admire Dr. Taboada’s ability to connect with

patients on a more personal level while still maintaining professionalism and being able to be

completely honest with his patients and answering all of their questions and concerns.

To begin with, I was able to learn in terms of interpersonal skills at this mentor visit from

Dr. Taboada the importance of communicating with other medical professionals that work hand

in hand with medical oncologists. Dr. Taboada explained to me that I either need to send emails
or talk in person with these other medical professionals I will be working jointly with on a

patient to ensure that we are all on the same page. I will use this interpersonal skill in the future

as a medical oncologist as I must actively communicate with other medical professionals such as

radiologists and cardiologists to make sure that we are all on the same page with a patient’s

current condition so we do not prescribe anything that may interfere with one another's

treatments. Dr. Taboada also emphasized to me that poor interpersonal communication skills

with other doctors will result in detrimental effects for the shared patient as one doctor could

prescribe medicines or treatments to the patient that hinders the treatment that the other doctor

prescribed which would then cause the patient to not be able to be successfully cured. I also

learned from Dr. Taboada the importance of interpersonal skills in terms of being knowledgeable

about the treatments I am using on patients to ensure that I can accurately answer all of their

questions in an easy way that they can understand. Dr. Taboada explained to me that patients

with cancer are often worried because they know how dangerous this disease is, so in the future

when I become a licensed medical oncologist I must understand the treatments I use well to be

able to adequately answer all of their questions about treatments in a way that they can

understand as being people not acclimated with all of the medical terminologies. I must also be

sure not to sugarcoat the information so that the patient understands the truth of what is

happening, Dr. Taboada said I just have to make sure that I share this information in an

empathetic way to the patient’s situation.

During this visit, I not only learned about the interpersonal skills required to be a medical

oncologist, but I also got to learn about the different tests that medical oncologists can order and

how medical insurance works. I learned from Dr. Taboada that a medical oncologist can order a
gene profiling test, which is a type of test that looks at all of the genes in a person’s cancer cells

to detect any abnormalities in the gene coding that could be treated with gene therapy. Gene

therapy, as Dr. Taboada explained to me, is a type of medicinal cancer treatment that aims to

modify or delete abnormal cancer genes detected by this test. This test is mostly used for skin

cancers as they are most receptive to these types of treatments. Dr. Taboada did note that this

type of testing is quite expensive so when I become a medical oncologist in the future I must take

care to order it sparingly and to only use it when deemed medically necessary and helpful to the

treatment. I also learned more about how medical insurance works in terms of coverage, but not

much since it is an exceptionally difficult and long thing to tackle during our short two-hour long

mentor visits. He did explain to me that medical insurance is less likely to cover newly

discovered and approved treatments, so in the future, if I were to become a doctor I need to be

sure to communicate this to my patients to make sure that they understand they may have to

come out of pocket to cover some of the costs for these treatments.

All in all, this second mentor visit was beneficial as it introduced me more into what it

takes to be a medical oncologist along with a little more into the inner workings of being a

medical oncologist. I was able to observe how to interact with patients and other medical

professionals from Dr. Taboada during this visit and then during the break between patients, Dr.

Taboada made sure to explain everything to me to be sure to reinforce all of this information. He

also explained to me during this visit more about the tests that a medical oncologist runs and a bit

about how insurance works. All of this information impacted my perception of oncology giving

me a better understanding of how it is important to be able to communicate with both other

doctors and patients to make sure that everyone is on the same page, which comes from great
interpersonal skills. I also now understand that there are certain treatments that oncologists can

order, but I need to be careful as they can become quite costly. I also need to be careful with

insurance as they may not cover every medical expense of my patient, so I need to be able to

accurately communicate to my patients any out of pocket expenses they may have. All the

information I learned at this visit was important as I will use all of the information I learned at

this visit in the future to help myself become an excellent medical oncologist that is successful in

saving lives.