Cancer Topics – Financial Toxicity ASCO Education

In this ASCO Education episode moderated by Dr. Rami Manochakian (Mayo Clinic), two-time cancer survivor and patient advocate Ms. Samantha Watson and medical oncologist Dr. Lidia Schapira (Stanford) discuss the multifaceted impact of high cancer care cost on patients and survivors. They also review communication strategies and resources oncology providers can offer to help alleviate financial toxicity.
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TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Rami Manochakian: Hello, and welcome to the ASCO Education Podcast Series. My name is Dr. Rami Manochakian. I'm a thoracic medical oncologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.
As today's host, I'll be moderating a discussion on what I believe is a very important topic when it comes to cancer care and its financial toxicity. I am very excited to have two wonderful guest speakers who are joining us today. Dr. Lidia Schapira, who's a medical oncologist with a focus and specialty in breast cancer and cancer survivorship. She's a professor of medicine and oncology and director of the Cancer Survivorship Program at Stanford University.
We also have with us, Miss Samantha Watson. She's a two-time cancer survivor, patient advocate, and Managing Director of Stewardship at Expect Miracles Foundation, which is an organization dedicated to providing emotional and financial assistance to people with cancer. It's a pleasure to have you both with us today.
Samantha Watson: Thank you so much for the opportunity.
Dr. Rami Manochakian: Miss Watson, I'm going to start with you. Your story that I got to learn about is very inspiring. You had cancer twice as a young adult. You've gone through a lot. Can you tell us what was it like to go through that journey with two cancers, and a lot of treatments? Also, during that journey, definitely, you must have experienced a lot of financial and other social challenges. I'd like to hear more about that, please.
Samantha Watson: So, I was a senior in college, and I'd had recurring knee pain that nobody could really diagnose for any reason. And it would come and go throughout my years of college. And finally, when I was a senior in college, I had extensive testing and they found Ewing sarcoma, which I had never heard of.
My mom actually was an oncology nurse at Memorial Sloan Kettering. And so, I don't think it was on anybody's radar screen, but she understood the language way better than I did.
What I came to learn was that Ewing sarcoma was typically diagnosed in boys under 20. And I was female and 21 at that time, and it was diagnosed about 300 times a year. So, I had no frame of reference for this. I had been around Sloan Kettering when I was a kid because my mom worked there, but I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what cancer felt like. And I certainly did not know anybody else who had gone through it.
But at that age and life stage, I was getting ready for my future. I was looking forward to graduating from college, I was looking forward to living on my own and everything stood still.
So, the cancer was in my leg. When I was diagnosed, I went through nine months of high-dose chemotherapy. I went through a 12-hour surgery. I had to relearn how to walk and did a lot of PT. In that time, my friends graduated and they started moving forward and they started creating their lives. And I sat back and watched.
I spent about four months at home after my treatment for Ewing's and I did my physical therapy. And I tried to figure out where to place cancer in my life as a young adult. And I went back to school and I had one semester left and I started to catch every cold that went around and strep. Just everything that goes around a college campus, I was constantly down and my doctors kept saying, ‘Don't worry, your immune system just has been devastated by this chemo and you just need time to recover.’
The day before my 23rd birthday, they did a