Care Partners | An Essential Part of the Lung Cancer Care Team

Katherine Banwell:

Dr. Marron, why are care partners an essential part of the lung cancer care team?

Dr. Thomas Marron:

Care partners are a huge part of the lung cancer care team because they are really the ones that are helping outside of the clinic. We are seeing our patients only intermittently. Sometimes I see my patients every three or four weeks. It’s very important that you have integration of friends, family, loved ones, other people in the community that are helping take care of patients.

It’s really for two reasons. One, some of the therapies that we are giving really do knock you down a bit. Chemotherapy in 2026 is a lot easier than chemotherapy in 1996. But it still does make people more fatigued. They are less able to maybe go to the grocery store on certain days when they’re at maybe their peak fatigue and really take care of themselves. So, it’s important to have a community that’s able to help carry people through those tough times when people are dealing with side effects from some of the therapies that we give.

Also, we use radiation sometimes in people who have locally advanced disease. That also makes people very fatigued, and they might have some other side effects. And they really do need occasionally some help at home. The other thing is that a lot of the times caregivers are extremely important at recognizing side effects. A lot of the times, we’re kind of oblivious to what’s going on in our own body. And it’s only when somebody points out that something is not right do we realize it. 

Or sometimes I’ll usually give my phone number to everyone in the family because sometimes the patient won’t recognize something’s going on, and they’ll really be adamant that it’s not a problem. And it’s only because somebody’s spouse or child calls me and says something’s not right, that we realize there is a side effect that needs to be addressed. The sooner we address those side effects, the better.

Katherine Banwell:

What advice do you have for care partners to take an active role in their loved one’s care?

Dr. Thomas Marron:

I think it’s super important for care partners to actually come to the appointments.

Especially the appointments where a patient’s seeing a physician. So, sometimes a patient will come in, and they’ll get treated on a regular basis, but they’ll only see their physician every few months. Other times, I typically see my patients every three weeks. So, it’s super important that caregivers come with the patient because a lot of the times information kind of gets garbled as people play telephone. So, if I explain what’s going on to a patient, and then they explain it to their son, and then their son explains it to their partner, when they call me and ask for an update, the information that’s been transmitted is completely different from what I said.

So, it’s really important for as many people to be in the room not only to hear what I’m saying, but also to ask questions and to ask clarifying questions. Because as doctors we try to communicate as well as possible. A lot of the times, we talk with doctor speak. There are certain times I use words and my family says, “What’s that?” And in my mind, that’s just a normal word. So, it’s important to always ask your doctor questions.

Your doctor is there to explain things to you and to try to simplify this very scary process you’re going through as a patient or as a loved one. And our role, and also the role of everyone on the team, the social workers, the nurses, the advanced practice practitioners, they’re all there to answer questions. There’s not ever question that’s a dumb question ever. If you’re not completely clear of the plan and what’s to be expected and what the next steps are, you should be asking questions nonstop.