Jerry,
I'm sure we will see more emotional outbursts from our patients.
Personally I would rather see a false positve and know that a suspicious area is nothing than finding out later after "observing" that it's something bad.
After all, a biopsy is much kinder than the surgery.
I often wonder exactly what people expect us to do in these cases. There is no recipe book. I can sleep at night knowing that I would treat my mother, my wife, my daughter or my son the way I would expect to treated, so that is my standard of care for people who are under my care. I'm much more agressive with abnormal lesions than 99% of my colleagues. I did some quick math, I recommended 243 patients have abnormal looking areas biopsied; 187 took my advice and had a biopsy, 17 were OC, 68 were other benign conditions that required treatment and follow-up ( lichen planus, cicitricial phemphegoid etc.), and the remainder came back OK.
I am not at all uncomfortable with these stats. My opimion of what I see has to be the same, so if I would have my own Dr. biopsy it if I had it then I must make that recommendation to my patient.
Rambling...I know but I hope I made my point.
You can't drive a car with your eyes closed and you can't categorize abnormal tissue without a microscope.

Just my own humble opinion.
( When in doubt, cut it out!! Then you can actually name the doubt and if all goes well it won't be OC.)

Cheers,

Mike


Dentist since 1995, 12 year Cancer Survivor, Father, Husband, Thankful to so many who supported me on my journey so far, and more than happy to comfort a friend.
Live, Laugh, Love & Learn.