Episode 5: Exploring the importance of guidelines for cancer treatment with the Executive Director of the NCCN Foundation Patrick K. Delaney

In this podcast, we cover - 

1. Insights on the evolution of medical science, public policy and funding for cancer care in the US

2. The importance supportive care, guidelines and resources, and the role of NCCN and the NCCN Foundation

3. Framework for understanding life-span and quality of life for patients and caregivers

Patrick Delaney is the Executive Director of the NCCN Foundation. Pat joined the NCCN team in 2021 and is a well-rounded professional with over 30 years of experience in management, strategic planning, sales, change management, government relations, fundraising and constituent care.

Quotes

4 minutes and 38 seconds

“My brother was diagnosed with liver cancer and unfortunately it was a terminal diagnosis and we've since lost him. But it reminded me of my not only passion for, but my commitment to getting back into the cause, which just took me a while to get back here. So [I] started looking for my next opportunity specifically in the cancer space, and found the NCCN.”

11 minutes

“Our focus with NCCN is to bring together some of the brightest and best in oncology care to develop our core product known as our NCCN clinical practice guidelines. And these are the guidelines for clinicians that give the, the, the best care recommendations based upon one's cancer diagnosis. What we do here at the foundation is philanthropic.”

15 minutes

“If I may I'll use breast cancer as an example, there's one clinical practice guideline it's quite large for, for breast cancer. We've, adapted that into three breast cancer patient guidelines to bring it a little bit to your question, more focused for the, for the retrospective patient population. Um, and we just got funding, very excited. We're gonna have our first ever patient guideline for breast cancer screening coming out later this summer.”

20 minutes

“In the cancer community from a research standpoint, we've created the NCCN foundation’s Young Investigator Rewards Program. These are two year grants to early career investigators within our NCCN member institutions. And again, our member institutions represent 32 of the top academic centers across the US.”

26 minutes

“Just looking at the quality of life from date of diagnosis, uh, through end of life, whether it was cancer related death or not in my own family members has been phenomenal just looking at, you know, my, my dad was diagnosed in 1998 with, with lung cancer and just watching the quality of his life. Uh, he made, he survived almost six years post-surgery um, versus several years after that with my mom had her stomach cancer versus several years after that with my sister, with her breast cancer, just quality of life addressing the treatment options, the nausea and vomiting impact of the various, you know, treatment object. It's just nice to see such attention.”

References

1. NCCN Foundation website – www.nccnfoundation.org
2. Access Free NCCN Patient Resources Online - https://www.nccn.org/patientresources/patient-resources (Mentioned at 19 minutes and 21 seconds)
3. Access Free NCCN Patient Resources via the Mobile App- https://www.nccn.org/guidelines/nccn-mobile-app (Mentioned at 19 minutes and 21 seconds)
4. Create a Free Account to Access Clinical Resources and More at NCCN.org– https://www.nccn.org/register (Mentioned at 12 minutes and 12 seconds)

Disclaimer: This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing or other professional health care services, including the giving of