LETTER: Treating the Person, Not Just the Disease

Last week, I traveled to Washington, D.C., with hundreds of American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) advocates, cancer patients and survivors, urging Congress to support legislation that would give cancer patients a better quality of life throughout their treatments (S. 641). I met with Sen. Mark Kirk’s staff, presenting them with 3,000 petitions and a letter signed by 50 hospitals that ask Sen. Kirk to sign onto this critically important bill.

When faced with a cancer diagnosis, patients and their loved ones often take swift and aggressive action to develop a plan to fight the disease. Doctors are chosen, treatment options are weighed and plans for fighting cancer are outlined. Unfortunately, there is often a missing piece to the cancer treatment puzzle -- palliative care.

Palliative care is specialized medical care for people with a serious illness like cancer. It is focused on providing patients with relief from the stress, pain and other symptoms that may come with a diagnosis of cancer. Palliative care is appropriate at any age and for any stage of a disease. It is all about treating the patient as well as the disease. It’s a big shift in focus for health care delivery — and it works.

For every moment that action is not taken to improve patient access to palliative care, many people battling cancer and other diseases continue to suffer unnecessarily. We must complete the cancer treatment puzzle by working to ensure everyone has access to quality palliative care. For the sake of the 66,840 people expected to be diagnosed with cancer in Illinois this year, I urge Sen. Kirk to support this legislation.

Kathy Goss, Ph.D.

Volunteer, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN)

Frankfort, Ill.