What If We Changed the Way We Talk About Cancer?
A conversation on the Conquer Cancer podcast.
This week, I’m excited to share this episode of the Your Stories podcast. Your Stories is presented by Conquer Cancer, the foundation arm of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). ASCO is the largest professional organization for oncologists like me, so it was a huge honor for me to be a guest.
As I mentioned in last week’s post 👇, I will be releasing my own podcast in September.
This mini-series will cover the life of Dr. Bernard Fisher, a pugnacious surgeon from Pittsburgh who changed the way we thought about cancer. Dr. Fisher’s story has everything - the Pittsburgh Pirates, a righteous protagonist, Congressional hearings, and even a President’s wife.
If you’ve had cancer, studied cancer, or even heard of cancer, Bernie Fisher changed your life. You’re going to want to listen.
Publicly discussing breast cancer was once deemed largely inappropriate until one of the world’s largest cancer charities joined hands with women around the world, determined to bring the topic into the mainstream. They succeeded: Today, many people from professional athletes to politicians proudly wear pink to raise breast cancer awareness.
Even so, cancer stigmas around other cancers persist, putting at risk not only today’s patients, but tomorrow’s as well. Whether for colorectal, lung, esophageal, uterine or other types of cancer, stigmatization frequently results in people hesitating to seek potentially lifesaving cancer screening, increasing the risk of the disease going undetected until it’s too late. Meanwhile, in some cases, stigmatized cancers receive less research funding, slowing the pace of progress and limiting the options for patients facing them.
But stigmas aren’t facts, they’re a way of thinking—and they’re changeable. April is National Cancer Control Month, launched with the aim of cutting the U.S. cancer death rate in half by 2028, and oncologists like Dr. Stacy Wentworth are helping to lead the way. Dr. Wentworth has two decades of experience leading patient-centered care teams. She also writes for Psychology Today and on Substack, where she discusses the difficult conversations that come with stigmatized cancers.
Listen to our conversation by clicking below!
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