An Unexpected Honor in Cancer Care

Our gastrointestinal cancers team at the Markey Cancer Center at the University of Kentucky in Lexington takes care of patients from all across our commonwealth. Each week, our patients come from affluent urban areas, but often they come from Appalachian Kentucky, where economic disadvantages are common, and resources (especially medical ones) are limited. We have an oncology team including surgeons and oncology nurses that see all of our patients with cancer through an unfiltered lens.

As the chief of surgical oncology and medical director of our clinic, I have helped to build a team where the surgeons perform the operations, and our oncology nurses do most everything else. Each week, our oncology nurses — especially Tamara Carey, APRN — welcome our patients with cancer from every corner of Kentucky, lend an ear, give a hug, provide expert analysis and do whatever is needed to comfort and reassure our patients.

As a gastrointestinal surgeon, I take great pride in my operative skills and celebrate my patients' health when they return safely to clinic after surgery. But I take, perhaps, greater pride and have maybe a little bit of jealousy when I hear that my patients have been looking forward to seeing their nurse Tamara Carey in clinic. It is reminder and reinforcement of the tremendous impact that Tamara has in the well-being of our patients with cancer. This is the type of healing that I cannot provide with an operation. And for this, my patients and I are both thankful.

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