Dr. Shria Kumar from the University of Miami’s Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center explains why empowering patients matters. She shares how education, research, and open communication help patients take an active role in their care and support their communities.
Transcript
Dr. Shria Kumar:
So, I think the best thing that we can do for our patients is provide them the education to speak about stomach cancer. The way this is important to me is that I conduct research. I conduct it in partnership with patients in my clinic, as well as in the community, and I ensure that patients in my clinic are aware of these research efforts.
I think people have a lot of interest in being stakeholders and being messengers for their community, their family members, and their friends. And I think simply telling them about the efforts that we are already doing makes them more interested and makes them motivated to help with that.
So, I’m in Miami, where there’s a high preponderance of gastric cancer and H. pylori. So by talking to my patients about the fact that we live in a city that has a lot of H. pylori and a lot of gastric cancer, and sharing with them that these are research efforts that I’m working on within the hospital setting, as well as in the community, it generally just leads to a conversation where they ask questions about how they got H. pylori, whether their friends or family members could have H. pylori, whether their friends and family members can see me and get tested, or discuss their own GI symptoms.
I think all of this tends to reduce the stigma around speaking about healthcare and health problems, particularly ones that are as uncomfortable as GI symptoms or GI illnesses. And I think it’s really essential. Ultimately, in medicine, we’re focused on systematic levels, and we’re focused on public health initiatives and guidelines and delivering healthcare within our traditional systems, but it really is important to get the word out. Because for everyone we’re not able to reach, the more people are able to reach them in informal settings outside of the clinic, outside of the endoscopy suite, the more we can ultimately reach people.