Filippo Ghelardi, Research Fellow at Gastrointestinal Oncology Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Former Resident Doctor at Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori di Milano, shared on LinkedIn:
“Yesterday I became an oncologist.
People kept asking me why I’d pick something so hard, often so tragic and inevitable. I’ve come to understand that being part of someone’s journey is among the greatest gifts in life, and that healing goes far beyond drug prescription, it requires empathy, kindness, compassion.
During my first year of residency, I met two patients that had a huge impact on my life. One was a young woman with rectal cancer, rapidly progressive: she used to tell me about her three little kids and how she feared leaving them orphans. One day we got to tell her that treatments were not working anymore and there was nothing left to do. We cried together and held hands.
The second woman was an elderly patient with extended small cell lung cancer, she was going to be enrolled in a clinical trial. During the course of her treatment, as her hair fell down, she would wear the craziest wigs, different styles and flashy colours, one time a shiny orange, the next a deep purple. She would always make fun of me for being goofy and we would have the loudest laughs together. Five years and countless rotations later I found her in the hallways, same wigs, same sparkle. She recognised me and hugged me tight, and told me that she was still doing great and was ready to leave for a vacation on the riviera.
Yesterday I became an oncologist, but the growing process is far from over. We learn from every new connection, every new colleague, every new patient, those who recover and those we lose. We learn for the people and from the people, and we never stop. My wish for my future self and all my peers is to never grow the arrogance of believing we have nothing left to learn, and that we never lose our sense of wonder.
‘Fil, the best is yet to come’.”
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