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What Are Common Barriers Breast Cancer Patients Seeking Care Face?

What Are Common Barriers Breast Cancer Patients Seeking Care Face? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What are some barriers breast cancer patients face in their access to care? Host Dr. Nicole Rochester asks Dr. Regina Hampton to share her perspective on obstacles that prevent optimal breast cancer care and how we can help get more patients on their path to empowerment.

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Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

So my first question for you, Dr. Hampton is, what are the common barriers, breast cancer patients and their families face when seeking care, what are the issues that our patients and families are facing?  

Dr. Regina Hampton: 

I think one of the big issues is having access to a breast center, so a multidisciplinary breast center, and so they tend to be in sort of in larger cities, sort of downtown, and many minority communities in these days can’t afford to live downtown. So they’re living on the outskirts, so they may…while they may have great doctors there, many times those doctors may not be up on the latest and the greatest, they may not have access to clinical trials, and so that really truly is a barrier in that sometimes our minority patients may get sub-optimal care. 

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

That’s very concerning. I’m glad that you brought that up, that we’re not disparaging the doctors that practice in those settings, but what you said is really important that they may not have access to some of those up-to-date clinical trials and things that we may see at academic centers, so thank you for bringing that to our attention.