In this episode, Dr. Fumiko Chino shares her inspiring journey from art director to oncologist, driven by her experience as a caregiver. She highlights the gap between ideal and actual cancer care by discussing a breast cancer imaging study where some patients with Stage 2 and 3 disease received scans to monitor for cancer. Dr. Chino goes into why “surveillance“ scans may or may not be beneficial, and clinicians must communicate this to their patients. She then stresses the importance of personalized communication and understanding patients' unique experiences in order to build trust. Dr. Chino also touches on why prioritizing physicians' well-being to prevent burnout matters.

This episode was supported by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and features this study by Caprice C. Greenberg, MD, MPH.

Key Highlights:

About our guest:

Fumiko Chino, MD is a cancer researcher, Assistant Attending in Radiation Oncology, and Lead of the Affordability Working Group at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She is also one of the Directors at the Costs of Care group, a NGO working to improve affordability in healthcare and the recipient of the inaugural 2022 ASCO Excellence in Equity Award. Her research is focused on financial toxicity, gaps in survivorship, health care disparities, and access; she has spoken across the US and internationally on equity and the costs of care.

Key Moments:

14:00 “I deliver care in the United States, one of, if not the wealthiest countries, certainly a country of privilege where we have every bell and whistle, and yet not everyone can access those bells and whistles. Not everyone has the capacity for receiving the highest quality of care. And even when I am able to offer the best, every bell and whistle delivered to the person and their capacity to receive it can be quite variable, right? Access, affordability, these are all like large barriers.You know, one of my most well-lauded studies is on parking costs, which is quite frankly like a really stupid thing to study. Like, why would parking be a barrier to anyone? It's parking. . But what's truly insulting is that people who actually can’t get the care that they really need in the facility that would probably serve them best because of a silly barrier like parking.”

53:31 “Just realizing that what is the right plan for this person is probably not the right plan for this other person, and understanding that coming to that conclusion together, trying to figure out again, sussing out, even if it's the small tailored things of like, ‘What can we do to make this easier for you?’ It's not one size fits all. It's really, or it shouldn't be, how about that?”

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