Advocacy in Action: David Kerr talks about National Cancer Planning in Europe
Vital Options presents Advocacy in Action (AIA), in partnership with the ESMO Cancer Patient Working Group and in collaboration with the ECCO Patient Advisory Committee. This six-part AIA Forum will bring together influential leaders in cancer advocacy, to address the core issues that impact cancer survivorship.
In this episode, David Kerr, discusses the importance of national cancer plans in Europe and around the globe.
Advocacy in Action at the 2011 European Multidisciplinary Cancer Conference was made possible, in part, by:
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Selma Schimmel, Founder & CEO Vital Options International:
Professor Kerr, as both ESMO president and as truly a renowned researcher with a whole lot of experience in writing national cancer plans, can you please tell us how you see the patient advocacy community being able to include cancer survivorship issues into national cancer plans?
David Kerr, Current President, European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO):
We’ve had a great discussion this afternoon and it’s a terribly important question. And there’s no doubt that if we mobilize civil society, if we can in a way gather into a single required the voices of cancer patient survivors and their families it makes a due difference because politicians listen to large groups. I think the survivorship issue has become real because it’s great to see that more people are living with cancer, more people are surviving. But with that comes some tests that we’ve heard about this afternoon and return to work, and legislative problems as to how we can protect those in work and the time that’s around it. We had some interesting discussions and debate about clinical trials and how we can better inform patients get better access, and I think the best way we can do that is to look for coordination to see how those elements of cancer survivorship can band themselves together into action groups and to work with existing communities to see how their voice will be held.
And I think we can learn from others – I was very impressed with the delegates from Italy in which clearly they have managed to persuade the Italian government to pass some extraordinary powerful laws protecting the cancer patient, their environment, their job, their pension, even to the extent to being able to find time for their families to be able to look after them in some way. So how can we learn from others, how can we adapt what legislative procedures?
Clinical trial stuff is a real hobbyhorse of mine, and I like to make a simple boost statement. I think that if I were a cancer patient, if I were the family member of someone with cancer, I would want them to be treated in a unit, a hospital center that was actively involved in research because there’s good evidence to suggest that you live longer and live better. And the quality of treatment delivered is better from centers of that sort. So I would urge all cancer patient survivors and family to pose that simple question: If I’m treated by you is your cancer center actively involved in clinical trials? And is there a chance you might even offer me? I think would be a very powerful message that would go out to the community in that way.
In terms of practicing oncologists considered advice I can give to my patients in terms of what they can do to take responsibility for their own health, their own life, yes. What if I don’t smoke, be careful with alcohol, don’t abandon it completely but be careful with it, take this exercise and advise anyone would give that way is good advice. There’s evidence in breast cancer, colorectal cancer, taking control in that way will improve the quality of your life and the duration, which seems simple and appropriate. So I think a great meeting and some very strong messages coming out as always. And perhaps a simple, single closing point, band together, unify a single voice loudly, carries further in the corridor of Paris than a babble of different voices raised at different ways and different times.
Selma Schimmel:
Thank you, Professor Doctor David Kerr, president of ESMO, and also I want to thank you for what you have done to really create a forum and opportunity for advocates to come together and really at a level playing field with the clinicians to talk about how to bring positive and proactive change in the whole cancer continuum of oncology care.
David Kerr:
Thank you.
Selma Schimmel:
Pleasure.
END OF VIDEO