Of course, if additional tests are done by the second doctor and new information is uncovered, that helps.

My ex-wife was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and the first doctor said that urgent surgery was needed and both thyroids need to be removed.

She obtained a second opinion from a well-known oncologist, who said that only part of one thyroid needs to be removed, and it wasn't so urgent.

Because everyone wanted to believe the second doctor, that was the option she went for.

This was a very expensive doctor. Shortly after the surgery, he notified her that, in fact, the cancer had spread to both thyroids, and the other one had to urgently be removed as well. This led to double the medical bill, opening up her neck twice, and all the accompanying inconvenience of two surgeries.

It was a strange situation where an incorrect assessment by the doctor directly led to that doctor making more money.

Also, it highlights the tough decision in terms of how you decide between two conflicting opinions if there are no additional diagnostic results to assist.

My late wife was treated for metastatic melanoma at MSK. Their approach is to have clinical teams and a tumor board that are assigned patients with related cancers. They are seeing many patients and there’s a warm hand off between specialists. Your radiation oncologist, medical oncologist and surgery / neuro specialists are on a team and know each other and are often familiar with the cases. In my wife’s case the community oncologist was wonderful, but he was a sole practitioner for this particular cancer.

In the second opinion scenario, they get to use that experience and caseload to look at a case with some perspective. Your community oncologist likely works on a small team and may not have the luxury of time and exposure to trials, etc.

Think of it as a second set of eyes.