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Have you ever wondered why cancer remains such a dreadful illness? Why is it so common? How can you reduce your cancer risk? Why is screening not better at finding cancers early? How does cancer make people feel so sick?
How do different types of treatment work, why might they fail, and how do they cause side effects? What role does our immune system play? Do alternative and complementary therapies work?
Why has progress been so painfully slow? What can we do to speed progress? How can we reduce the very high cost of effective new therapies?
Which healthcare system (Canadian or American) is better at caring for cancer patients? What can the two systems learn from each other?
In this book, oncologist Dr. David J. Stewart addresses these common, vexing questions about cancer. He also discusses what future changes we can anticipate.
Each chapter starts with a Short Primer section that tries to answer these questions in a way that can be understood by patients, their families, and the public. This Short Primer section is followed by a Further Details section for anyone wanting to take a somewhat deeper dive into the topic.
The intent of this book is to inform, so that the reader can better understand the enemy we face. But it is also a call to action. There are too many impediments to progress. We can and must fix this!
About the author
David J. Stewart, MD, FRCP(C) is a Professor of Medicine and a seasoned medical oncologist. For more than 40 years, he has been wrestling with the many problems surrounding cancer patient care and has been teaching both patients and trainees why things are the way they are.Dr. Stewart has worked in both the United States and Canada. He knows both healthcare systems well. He was at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas from 1976 to 1980 and from 2003 to 2011, and at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Canada from 1980 to 2003 and from 2011 to the present.In answer to the question, "Which healthcare system is better?", his answer is, "I love them both and I hate them both. Both have strengths, but both also have major issues that need fixing."He has published more than 340 peer-reviewed academic papers and more than two dozen book chapters. He has also published several op eds in the lay press on factors that impede patient access to the care they need. In 2016, he and his collaborator Dr Razelle Kurzrock received the annual Federa Award from the Federation Foundation of Dutch Medical Scientific Societies. This award was in international recognition of their call for new approaches to cancer clinical research. This book repeats that call.
