My Kidney Cancer Taught Me That Patients Aren’t Consumers

Most normal people, when told they have kidney cancer, worry about what that means for their long-term health. I’m not normal. When I discovered I had a 1cm tumor growing on my left kidney, I wondered: “How much is this going to cost me?”
My lack of normality results in part from my profession – I’m a physician and behavioral scientist who believes that every experience is an excuse to conduct research. I’m also a famously discerning consumer (my…