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Episode 7: How to Survive and Thrive<br />
Chris Wark: I was a no show for <strong>the</strong> port.<br />
Ty: Okay.<br />
Chris Wark: After that <strong>the</strong>y sent me a certified letter. They were calling<br />
my house. They were after me to try to get me to do chemo<strong>the</strong>rapy. And<br />
I just was avoiding <strong>the</strong>ir calls. I’m like leave me alone. Like I’ve made up<br />
my mind. This is what I’m doing.<br />
Ty: Did you ever talk to <strong>the</strong> oncologist <strong>about</strong> <strong>the</strong> phony statistics<br />
or <strong>the</strong> incorrect statistics that he gave you because clearly that<br />
was not accurate.<br />
Chris Wark: No, I never went back. And I know why he did it. He did it<br />
because he knew <strong>the</strong> <strong>truth</strong> was extremely discouraging. You know, if he<br />
had come in and said, look, with <strong>the</strong> <strong>the</strong>rapies we have available you’ve<br />
got <strong>about</strong> at 30 percent chance of living five years. I would have been<br />
out <strong>the</strong> door in five seconds. See ya! But he told me 60 percent because<br />
he thought, well, you know, maybe this will sound better. This will be<br />
more encouraging. Maybe it’ll give him more hope, right It’ll make <strong>the</strong><br />
treatment sound more appealing, right. 60’s way better than 30.<br />
So that’s why I did it. That’s why I did it. It’s just basic economics. They<br />
need a steady supply of patients to make money and you know, doctors<br />
aren’t bad people but <strong>the</strong>y’re trained. They go to med school and <strong>the</strong>y<br />
go to—<strong>the</strong>y have residency and it takes 15 – 20 years for a doctor to go<br />
through all <strong>the</strong> training and actually go through enough practice before<br />
<strong>the</strong>y realize that everything <strong>the</strong>y’ve been trained to do doesn’t really<br />
work and that most of <strong>the</strong>ir patients end up dying. And by that times its<br />
too late to change careers and <strong>the</strong>y’re making a high six figure income.<br />
The average oncologist makes almost 300 thousand dollars a year. And<br />
yet in a survey that just came out <strong>about</strong> a month ago on Medscape, 52<br />
percent of oncologists reported that <strong>the</strong>y were unsatisfied with <strong>the</strong>ir<br />
income.<br />
Ty: Wow! And <strong>the</strong>y’re making—<strong>the</strong> average makes over<br />
Chris Wark: $290 thousand a year.<br />
Ty: That’s a lot of money.<br />
Chris Wark: That’s a lot of money to be unsatisfied <strong>about</strong>.<br />
Ty: It’s not enough apparently.<br />
The Quest for The Cures Page 219
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