I used to work in road construction, traffic control. I was paired with a man twice my age that had spent the majority of his life in OTR trucking. He told me s

I used to work in road construction, traffic control. I was paired with a man twice my age that had spent the majority of his life in OTR trucking. He told me stories of all the uppers and downers he took, in order to allow for the lifestyle of "racking up as many miles as I can." He would smoke through a pack every night. Needless to say, his base-line health was compromised because of these habits. One night he tells me the doctor has discovered a tumor on his lung. He continued to smoke at the same rate, against my (and I'm sure his doctors) advice. At some point he started chemo, and still came to work. Looked like a dead man walking. I'm no medical expert, but it seems to me that chemotherapy irritates the wound. Fast forward a couple months after I had quit that job, I hear that he has died of lung cancer. But I also here that his wife had resorted to putting donation jars at cash registers at nearby gas stations, in order to keep funding this "treatment". So this man died of a habit he refused to give up, but not before trusting the doctor(s) involved and draining the resources his family would have after he was gone. I know this is not a story of mental illness, which seems to be a more elusive affliction that something like cancer that directly affects the bodies hardware. The theme of my input on this empathy matter is not directed at the disposition of the doctor, but rather the assumption of the patient that the doctor always knows best. It is more of a trust issue, now that administrative costs make up 30% of healthcare cash flow.