If you are a breast cancer survivor, who has completed treatment for breast cancer, your best bet for follow-up care may be with your family physician. In what is being called a landmark study, researchers followed 968 women, half of whom received follow-up care from a family physician. The other half of the women in the study continued to visit a cancer oncologist. Of the women who were cared for by a family physician, 11.2 percent had a breast cancer recurrence, and 29 women died. Of the women who were cared for by an oncologist, 13.2 percent had a breast cancer recurrence, and 30 women died.

As a breast cancer survivor, I choose to see my family physician for follow-up care. A visit to the family physician is not psychologically weighted with a sense of impending doom I inevitably feel when I walk into an oncologist's office. It is a personal choice, but for women who do make the choice to visit the family physician for follow-up care, this study is reassuring that nothing is being compromised in quality of care.