The Job or Work of Being a Cancer Patient is the most important job a cancer patient will ever have; their life depends on it! The Job or Work entails learning how to acquire complicated scientific cancer information, becoming skilled at communicating, negotiating and problem-solving with a family, health care providers, insurance and pharmaceutical companies, government agencies and other cancer patients.

Personal Advocacy: is about taking charge of your disease/illness and your life; includes learning how to do research on your cancer diagnosis in order to gather information about the disease/illness.

Personal observations: importance of Developing a Relationship with your physicians where you are comfortable and able to have conversations about the following:

a. Medical narrative: domain of diagnosis, treatment and cures, i.e., of symptoms, tests, diet, and medications; but equally important.

b. Be able to identify Illness Beliefs and the role they play in a cancer patient's management of their illness; understand the difference between

c. Constraining Illness Beliefs, beliefs that negatively impact and limit the cancer patient's management of his/her disease and illness.

Citation Format: Richard H. Gelb. [Advocate Abstract:] The job or work of being a cancer patient: How to advocate for yourself and a loved one [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Tenth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2017 Sep 25-28; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2018;27(7 Suppl):Abstract nr C18.

©2018 American Association for Cancer Research.
2018
American Association for Cancer Research.