Oncology/Hematology

The connection between sickle cell disease and socioeconomics

Physician
April 8, 2022

Two new treatments have emerged for sickle cell disease. One curative treatment is a bone marrow transplant, and the second treatment is a gene-based therapy undergoing clinical trials. While this is much-welcomed news for patients battling the disease, the medical profession still needs to address sickle cell disease’s socioeconomic and racial health care inequities.

Sickle cell disease is a genetic disease that alters and lowers red blood …

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Bring back CME conferences to exotic locations

Physician
April 6, 2022

It was not too long ago, but it seems like decades when traveling for a CME conference was a routine part of being a physician as looking up articles on UpToDate or giving patients bad news. But like so many other things in life, the reality of CME conferences has changed.

Most training programs give allowance to physicians for CME conferences on a yearly basis. After training, you have to keep …

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10 colorectal pearls for Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month

Conditions
March 18, 2022

March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Share these gems with your family, friends, and patients. Take the time to reflect on your personal history and encourage yourself and others to get screened when appropriate.

1. The large intestine or the large bowel consists of the colon, rectum, and anus. The colon and rectum have a cumulative length of 150 cm or 4.9 feet.

2. Gastrointestinal contents are received from the small bowel …

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One surgeon’s decision during COVID to finally believe in her long-term survival

Physician
March 15, 2022

For most of my life, I was so busy cramming and training to focus on my nasal profile or my pesky protruding lower left canine. The drive to achieve academically consumed me from a very young age. I staved off self-doubt through study, intense repetition until the knowledge bled from my brain onto the pages of countless exams. For eleven years, I missed birthdays, family gatherings and sacrificed friendships and …

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Why and how to get a second opinion [PODCAST]

Policy
February 6, 2022
YouTube video

“In the end, the patient-physician relationship is crucial to overall decision-making for any plan of care, treatment, or surgery. There are many variations in the reviewed studies in health care literature as to the cost-effectiveness of second opinions in medicine. These studies could be easily misconstrued that there are …

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Patients need palliative care to manage the pain of sickle cell disease

Conditions
February 4, 2022

Sickle cell disease (SCD) affects about 100,000 Americans as an inherited genetic disorder with intermittent exacerbations requiring hospitalization. SCD is also a painful and complicated disease with no single physician specialist that can provide pain relief. While SCD pain is similar in severity to cancer pain, patients struggle to find adequate pain relief because they are often labeled as “doesn’t appear in pain” as the …

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When doctors can’t hug

Physician
February 1, 2022

I stood outside the busy ICU room with Gregory’s mom, holding her hand and talking softly, while the team inside removed his breathing tube and prepared him for his final trip home. Gregory was dying from a devastating brain tumor with no known cure, and his mother had made the difficult decision to take him off his ventilator and bring him home to pass away among his family. When the …

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The price of love is loss. But still we pay.

Physician
January 8, 2022

I just wanted to tell you that I had a wonderful patient as a consult today. She had a pretty bad prognosis and was a recently diagnosed hepatobiliary cancer patient. Pretty aggressive disease with wild metastasis. From her time of diagnosis to my consult was less than two weeks. But her cancer was advancing at a remarkable pace, and the oncologist was recommending no further chemotherapy if she remained this …

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Tumor-informed residual disease testing can help inform cancer treatment

Conditions
January 5, 2022

Life can feel full of uncertainty when battling cancer, with few guarantees. “Is there still cancer in my body?” and “Will it come back?” are common questions that have long been difficult to answer confidently until recently. Advances in next-generation sequencing — and a growing understanding of how our bodies respond to illness and treatment — have brought us closer than ever to predicting our individual futures, at least when …

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How to convert medical knowledge into digital assets that work for you

Physician
January 4, 2022

Over 12 months, I rebuilt my practice workflow to solve the problem of inefficient knowledge transfer between me and my patients. Now with a new system incorporating a library of leveraged digital assets I’m saving time and improving patient experience. Here’s how it happened:

“Hey, Picasso! That patient wants to keep your drawing to show her family!”

My secretary shouted down the hall to my office. An elderly patient asked to keep …

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Keeping a cancer diagnosis silent

Conditions
December 7, 2021

It is a seasonally cold fall evening in Long Island, NY, and I am standing in a field in the middle of what should be a darkened park. Still, I am truly amazed by how bright it is lit up by lanterns with different colors demarcating patients, families, and remembrances.

As an oncologist who treats blood cancers, this event, called Light the Night, sponsored by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, was …

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A physician and sister, but also an accomplice?

Physician
December 1, 2021

My older sister, Joy, will soon die from metastatic breast cancer.  She will pass away at age 50.  She will leave behind a husband of 21 years and the three children they nurtured to young adulthood.  Our elderly parents will lament the unnatural timing of their firstborn’s death.  And, I will mourn this loss, wondering whether my support of my sister’s spiritual beliefs makes me, as a physician-scientist, an accomplice in her death.

For the …

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Cancer provided an unexpected silver lining

Conditions
November 25, 2021

When I first met her, I perceived she was nervous. I could sense the doctor skepticism. She simply had a negative aura about her. An Eeyore, if you will. A “no” person. A drag.

To my absolute non-surprise, she declined all screenings that a woman of her age is recommended to get. No labs. No pap. No mammogram. No flu shot.

I wondered why she had even come to the doctor.

I think …

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How MRI-guided radiation therapy is changing the paradigm in pancreatic cancer 

Conditions
November 14, 2021

I truly believe we’re at the beginning of something great in terms of fundamentally changing how we approach pancreatic cancer, the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States. With a mortality rate of roughly 80 percent, it’s been referred to as a medical emergency, yet minimal progress has been made in its treatment over the past few decades.

In the world of radiation oncology, …

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The rise of targeted therapies: the era of the patient-focused approach  

Meds
November 12, 2021

There is an urgent need for innovation in cancer treatments. Although we’ve seen significant progress in indications for drugs treating particular diseases, cancer research data shows that 10-year survival statistics for cancers such as esophageal and lung cancer, for instance, have shown only a 10 percent increase, while pancreatic cancer has shown no significant improvement since the 1970s. The implementation of targeted therapies in cancer treatment is an …

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Tackling racial disparities in cancer care by creating new ways for institutions to operate

Conditions
October 31, 2021

At 84, Emma Shuford found a lump in her breast. After a lumpectomy, she was diagnosed with locally aggressive breast cancer. Her doctors said it was treatable but she needed radiation to help stop it from growing.

At first, she refused. Because of her age and a chronic leg injury, she didn’t feel safe driving to the cancer center. The bus would take 90 minutes each way, and she couldn’t walk …

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Breast cancer’s silver lining

Conditions
October 19, 2021

asco-logo In many ways, this woman was similar to other patients I have seen after a diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Her hair was growing back, and I immediately noticed that she was comfortable enough to not be wearing a wig or head covering for our Zoom visit. I keep my hair very short by choice and I find this …

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How to overcome the roadblocks to getting a medical second opinion

Physician
October 7, 2021

There are many reasons why you should seek a second opinion. A second opinion can help you:

  • Make sure your diagnosis is accurate, lowering your risk of misdiagnosis and the harms that can cause.
  • Ensure that you’re choosing an appropriate, evidence-based treatment that has been shown to achieve better outcomes.
  • Learn about all appropriate treatment options, both medical and surgical, so you can make an informed decision.

One study conducted by …

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Culture and end-of-life caretaking

Physician
July 7, 2021

Amidst beeping monitors, I sat holding my mother’s frail hand in mine with tears rolling down my face and an eerie silence within my soul. I was trying to make sense of the last 24 hours.

My mother had migrated to Houston after an early retirement at 55 to spend time with her granddaughter and me. But life had other plans, as she was diagnosed with breast cancer a year into …

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CME Spotlights