Parents are scared of going to the hospital. VERY SERIOUS. What do I do?

I have a very good friend who has parents that are extremely scared of going to the hospital. The reason i am concerned over this, is that i am very interested in her well-being. She is extremely worried about the situation, because one of her parents has lumps in her neck, and does not wish to get checked out. The scary part about this is that her sister ( the parents sister) had cancer, and died in her early forties , leaving kids and a husband behind. My friend is extremely worried that this could be the outcome with her parents and i feel i must help in some way. What can she do to get her parent to go get checked out? What can i do to help her through this?

Many people including me (an RN) try and avoid the dr. I was very ill with a lung disease for a long time and after I finished treatment I quit going to Dr's. Just up and quit because going to Dr's meant I was sick and I didn't want to be sick anymore. I let things slide for about 5 years before I decided to see a Dr. again ond only then for a routine yearly womens check up. Guess what, lump in breast negative biopsy ( found out 90% are) and bcause I din't contine my health care I also ended up with heart damage. Found this out when I had "bronchitis" and finally had to go to the ER because of severe shortness of breath. This had been going on for almost a week and I couldn't een make it from the bed to the bedroom and I still let it go.

If you have any friends who have an illness talk to them. Denial is prime in these cases (I sure was in denial).
ee if you can get your friend and some others to have dinner with the parents and let them have an open discussion with NO pressure. Beforehand look up things on the web and write down some facts. This might lead to the sit down in front of the computer to see for themselves. But do your reasearch first. One word of caution, you can read things on the web that are not exactly accurate and get false advice, look at several reputable sites like WedMd, Johns Hopkins Medical school, but remember many things you read can actually make you see things as worse than they really are.

sit them down in front of the computer and show them websites in which other people have the same symptoms (webmd.com, etc) this should scare them into doing something if they know if could be really serious

Her parents are being rather immature about this and need to start thinking rationally. If they have children to care for, they must take care of themselves first so their kids aren't scared to death.

Lumps in the throat can be many things, many of which are not cancerous. I have had many relatives die of different cancers, so do I stop going to the doctor? No, I use my head and understand if I get help sooner than later, I have a good chance if it is serious that I can be treated.