Also, keep in mind that this article, like so many such articles, was probably a paid industry advertisement. I'm assuming by this time, everyone is aware of graham's submarine article.
Maybe it will change cancer treatment forever, but as far as I know, cancer patients still go through some form of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, etc.
I have no insight into the OP’s case in particular, but this is objectively untrue in a large majority of cases. The percentage of oncologists who stay on top of and recommend clinical trials to their patients is in the single digits. One thing I’ve learned from following Jake Seliger’s excellent blog [0] is that cancer patients are often on their own when it comes to researching and applying to clinical trials.
And, IMO, this mostly makes sense. There's very limited spots and eligibility criteria; we can't throw everyone in a trial. Filtering based on who is most motivated to go through the process makes sense.
The opposite, where oncologists enthusiastically convey the news of trials that probably won't work and offer false hope, isn't great.
The whole point of the trial is to get to the point where we know we can recommend this for more people.
You faith in the medical profession is wildly excessive. I was just given someone else’s xray and someone else’s IV
You can spend WAY more time running things down than any doctor.
2) Medical trials are notoriously bad about being findable.
We have had several articles on HN about this. There are actually businesses that take money to chop through some of the red tape for you.
3) The average reader of HN has a much different skill set than the average doctor.
Certainly, the doctor doesn't have the same ability to crunch through data like programmers do. Nor are they likely as focused.
4) Doctors have a spectrum from excellent to sub par just like all humans.
The treatments are damn near miracles--when they apply. The other problem is that cancer, just like any life form, will mutate over time and generally becomes resistant to the treatment.