Stephanie Saul Nyt News Service

Monica Long had expected a routine appointment. But here she was sitting in her new oncologist's office, and he was delivering deeply disturbing news.Nearly a year earlier, in 2007, a pathologist at a small hospital in Cheboygan, Mich., had found the earliest stage of breast cancer from a biopsy. Extensive surgery followed, leaving Ms. Long's right...

Monica Long had expected a routine appointment. But here she was sitting in her new oncologist's office, and he was delivering deeply disturbing news.Nearly a year earlier, in 2007, a pathologist at a small hospital in Cheboygan, Mich., had found the earliest stage of breast cancer from a biopsy. Extensive surgery followed, leaving Ms. Long's right...