Kendra Paabo/LinkedIn
Apr 1, 2025, 06:51
Kendra Paabo: The 3 worst words you can say to someone with cancer
Kendra Paabo, Manager of Marketing and Program Informatics at Brain Tumor Network, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“The 3 worst words you can say to someone with cancer:
‘Watch and Wait’
- No action
- No support
- No connection
- No empowerment
- Just prolonged uncertainty
To truly help patients, we must rethink this phase:
Words hold power
Consider a rename:
- ‘Active Surveillance with Support’
- ‘Empowered Monitoring’
Build survivorship plans:
- Include early palliative care discussions and incorporation
- Encourage meaningful connection through support groups and peer mentorship
Ongoing Navigation support:
- Provide patient-focused insights about expectations during the cancer experience (remember, patients don’t know what they don’t know)
- Offer informed clinical education, empowering tools and resources, and compassionate, validating psychosocial care
Increase clinical trial awareness:
- Assess trial interest as soon as possible
- Educate on enrollment timepoints, trial phases and designs (e.g. randomization and placebos), and informed consent
- Identify patient goals for trial enrollment
Use patient-reported outcomes:
- Encourage journaling tools
- Help patients track symptoms meaningfully
Watch and wait may have clinical importance, but let’s find something to do in the interim
We need to focus on empowering patients instead of leaving them passive.”
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