ASCP Patient Champions Program Empowers Patients, Changes Lives

On a summer morning in 2009, Rebecca, a Santa Fe-based sculptor, began her week with a colonoscopy after experiencing stomach pains. The diagnosis from pathologists and laboratory professionals was ominous: colon cancer. Frightened about her diagnosis, Rebecca read as much she could about her diagnosis.

But she also had confidence in her care team at the University of New Mexico (UNM). At the same time, her sister, a GI pathologist, sent Rebecca’s lab specimens off to one of the top colon cancer doctors in the country. That doctor confirmed with Rebecca’s University of New Mexico team that the treatment plan they’d designed was the right course of action to treat her cancer.

She underwent difficult radiation treatments at UNM, and took a chemotherapy drug every day to augment the treatment. She also had once a week chemotherapy treatments in Albuquerque, which required a blood draw at each visit. The laboratory, she explained, would check her levels to make sure she was able enough to have the chemotherapy treatment.

Months later, she finished her treatment and was pronounced tumor-free. After managing a cancer diagnosis, Rebecca understands and respects the work of laboratory professionals and pathologists even more.

“It was unbelievably comforting to have my sister be in touch with other doctors, and following my treatment every step of the way,” Rebecca says.

The treatments weren’t easy, but Rebecca finished her course in September 2009. Ten weeks later, after a PET scan, she was pronounced tumor-free.

Being the sister of a pathologist, Rebecca respected the work laboratory professionals and pathologists do. But now, post-treatment, she understands and respects it in a way she couldn’t have before her cancer diagnosis.

“Without lab professionals and pathologists, I think modern medicine would be in a world of hurt these days,” she says. “Laboratory professionals and pathologists help doctors make accurate diagnoses—and where would we be without that?"

Through the real-life stories of patients like Rebecca, the ASCP Patient Champions program empowers more patients and their caregivers to ask the right questions about laboratory testing and to understand their diagnoses.

To learn more about the ASCP Patient Champions program, visit www.ascp.org/patients.