Understanding what you have been told
A cancer diagnosis arrives with a vocabulary nobody teaches you. These guides explain what the tests mean, what the options actually involve, and what is worth asking, in plain language. Use them however helps, whether or not you are a patient of Dr. Weiner's.
Walk in prepared
The single biggest predictor of a useful appointment is how organized you are walking into it. Most people leave a consultation remembering only a fraction of what was said, and think of the question they meant to ask on the drive home.
Dr. Weiner uses WellPrept to help patients gather their records and write down their questions beforehand. It is free, takes about ten minutes, and you do not need to be his patient to use it. If you are seeing another urologist, or preparing for a second opinion anywhere, it works just as well.
Organize your records and questions before you sit down. Free, and yours to keep whichever doctor you see.
Six cancers, explained
Each guide covers how the cancer is found, what the tests mean, what the treatment options actually involve, and a set of questions worth asking out loud.
Prostate cancer & PSA
What your PSA actually means, how to read a pathology report, Gleason score versus Grade Group, and what active surveillance involves day to day.
Bladder cancer
Why blood in the urine always needs looking at, what a TURBT tells you, how BCG works, and the difference muscle invasion makes.
Kidney cancer
Most kidney masses turn up by accident. Which ones are not cancer at all, when a biopsy helps, and why saving kidney tissue matters.
Testicular cancer
A lump, an ultrasound, and why sperm banking has to come before treatment. Highly curable, but the sequence matters.
Upper tract urothelial cancer
Cancer in the kidney's drainage system or the ureter. When the kidney can be saved, and why your bladder still needs watching.
Penile cancer
A sore that will not heal needs a biopsy, not another cream. Why the groin lymph nodes matter more than anything else.
True for any cancer appointment
Bring more than you think you need
Pathology reports, every lab value with its date, imaging on a disc rather than just the written report, a current medication list including supplements, and a family history. Reports summarise; images can be re-read. The difference occasionally changes the plan.
Bring a second set of ears
People retain very little of a consultation where they have just heard the word cancer. Take someone with you, or ask to record the conversation. Nobody reasonable minds.
Ask what the timeline actually is
Some urologic cancers move slowly and a few weeks spent getting organized costs nothing. Others genuinely need moving on. Rather than guessing, ask your own doctor directly how much time you have to decide, because the honest answer varies enormously between these six diseases.
A second opinion is normal
Asking for slides to be reviewed, imaging to be re-read, or for another surgeon's view is routine practice, not a vote of no confidence. For rarer cancers, where a centre is treating only a handful of cases a year, it matters more rather than less.
How to use all of this
These pages are general education, not medical advice, and they cannot account for your particular situation. Treatment decisions depend on details that are not here: your imaging, your pathology, your other health conditions, and what you care about most. Take them to your own doctor and work through them together.
If something here contradicts what your urologist has told you, raise it with them directly rather than assuming either of us is wrong. Guidelines describe populations. Your doctor is looking at you.
Each guide lists the professional guidelines it draws on, along with the free patient-facing versions published by the Urology Care Foundation and NCCN.
Last reviewed September 2026 by Adam B. Weiner, MD.