After practicing for awhile when I use to believe I could never ever do anything wrong, I found myself on the other end. It was a palliative case (at that time) in which the patient surprisingly lived much longer and had better results then anyone expected. Long story short, there was a recurrence/marginal miss and to this day I believe it was due to me being “cute” with my margins and dose. I attempted to salvage things by doing a more definitive course, larger volume and although there was more local control, after a period of time, there was another recurrence.
I ended up sending her to an academic center but can only guess what they told the patient about my plan. Haunts me to this day as the patient and their family members trusted and valued my opinion and what I was doing.