Douglas Flora, Executive Medical Director of Yung Family Cancer Center at St. Elizabeth Healthcare, President-Elect of the Association of Cancer Care Centers, and Editor in Chief of AI in Precision Oncology, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“The Calculus of Hope: 45,000 People, One Mission.
I am finally home, digging out from under a mountain of post-ASCO emails, and looking at an Oura ring that thinks I’m dying with an 8-hour sleep debt and an elevated heart rate. It was still worth every single minute. My favorite week of the year.
There is something profoundly holy about putting 45,000 people in the same convention center, all running on adrenaline and coffee, totally united by a single obsession: ending cancer. With 3,000 new abstracts presented this year, the sheer volume of science was staggering.
But as I sit back and reflect on the energy in Chicago, I realize its true magic happens when you see raw clinical progress and fierce human passion occupy the exact same square foot.
As a cancer doctor, I am hardwired to love the data. I will spend days now looking at Kaplan-Meier curves, posters, and presentations showing improved survival and real, measurable hope. These abstracts aren’t just statistics; they are the evidence-based ammunition we get to bring back to our clinics to tell a patient, “We have a better option for you today than we did last week.”
But as a cancer survivor, my lens shifts entirely. Where the physician sees data, the survivor sees the human heart. I loved watching practice leaders fighting to make care delivery more equitable, brilliant founders innovating tools to strip away administrative burnout, and fierce patient advocates turning their personal traumas into levers to move an entire industry.
The data gives us the strategy, but the people give us the soul.
Oncology can be a heavy, isolating foxhole to fight in. We spend our lives navigating the narrow straits between hope and grief. That is why we tolerate the exhaustion and the missed sleep—because we need to see our tribe. Reconnecting with old friends who feel like family, and meeting inspiring new ones determined to make a difference, is how we refuel.
I return to my clinic today exhausted but deeply re-centered. The work continues, the mission remains, and our tribe is moving the needle.
To everyone I crossed paths with in Chicago—thank you for the reminders of why we do this. Let’s keep pushing.
Unexpected ASCO highlight: Finally met Johanna Bendell, and she is as awesome as I’d always thought she would be.”
More posts featuring Douglas Flora.
