Joan Lunden Will Keynote February Conference, Share Her Experiences with Breast Cancer,
and Talk about What Constitutes a Good Patient/Medical Team Relationship
PLAINSBORO, NJ (Feb. 4, 2015) —Because breast cancer is in fact an “enormous family of diseases,” multidisciplinary teams of medical oncologists, surgeons, radiation oncologists, patients and their families need to work together to ensure good outcomes and minimize side effects, says the chairman of the upcoming 32nd Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference®, planned and developed by ACCME-accredited Physicians’ Education Resource®, LLC (PER®).
“It’s hard to stay current in breast cancer. It’s a field that changes week to week,” says Conference Chairman Patrick I. Borgen, M.D., of Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Because there are literally hundreds of types of breast cancer, a large team should review every patient’s individual situation, he recommends. “It’s not about the iconic oncologist or surgeon or radiation doctor. It’s about the team.”
Multidisciplinary teams will be a key focus of the four-day conference that begins Thurs., Feb. 26. Leading oncologists in multiple disciplines will convene to be discuss state-of-the-art treatments in each therapeutic area and to learn more about the value of cross-team clinical cooperation.
“We will have more than 1,000 doctors in Miami who want to get it right, do it better,” Borgen says. He encouraged medical, surgical and radiation oncologists and other healthcare professionals interested in the treatment of breast cancer to visit www.gotoper.com to register for the Conference or view the program agenda.
On Sat., Feb. 28, the conference keynote speaker, Joan Lunden, will share the patient’s perspective about breast cancer and will talk about what constitutes a good medical team and patient relationship. She will stress the importance of lifestyle and a winning attitude and will share her personal experience in choosing an atypical regimen in the sequencing of treatments of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation
As she noted in a recent interview with Borgen, grappling with contradictory recommendations from two leading oncologists on the treatment of her rare, fast-growing and virulent breast cancer was not easy (http://www.gotoper.com/go/borgenLunden2). When she was first diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, she opted to embrace an atypical treatment regimen—chemotherapy first, then surgery, rather than the reverse. A more typical regimen would have been surgery first to remove the tumor, followed by chemotherapy and radiation. In her case, choosing chemotherapy first made the surgery much less invasive. “The much smaller tumor was gone. It had been completely eradicated, and the bigger one had been shrunk by about 70 percent,” she said.
During the interview, Lunden and Borgen agree that it’s important to overcome resistance to change and to help medical teams stay on top of the latest developments so they can implement them quickly in their practices and help their patients. The videos were created as part of the Conference’s mission to foster awareness of the latest advances in treating breast cancer patients.
While significant advances have been made in research and treatment, 40,000 women die every year due to breast cancer. Borgen sees his role as conference program chairman to advocate for continued education about breast cancer and identify more effective therapies to help more women prevent breast cancer, detect it early, and survive it once it has been detected.
“It’s impossible for me to be pessimistic about breast cancer today,” Borgen said in the interview. “I’ve treated around 6,000 women with breast cancer. And our success rates and our victories are exponentially different than they were in the 1990s or in the mid-2000s. There are 200-plus drugs in the breast cancer pipeline going through FDA testing. Genomic profiling, opening up the hood on these cancers and looking at the genes that are driving them, looking at the pathways is making us realize how to treat cancers that we didn’t know how to treat before.”
About the Miami Breast Cancer Conference®
The Conference brings together leading oncologists in multiple disciplines with the aim of fostering awareness of state-of-the-art treatments in each therapeutic area, and encouraging cross-team clinical cooperation. Attendees will benefit from opportunities to interact with pioneers of innovative approaches in each of these subspecialties, and gain insight into the optimal multidisciplinary management of patients with breast cancer.
This educational program is directed at medical, surgical and radiation oncologists interested in the treatment of patients with breast cancer. Fellows, nurse practitioners, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, researchers and other health care professionals interested in the treatment of breast cancer are also invited to attend.
About Physicians’ Education Resource®, LLC
Accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), Physicians’ Education Resource® (PER®) is the certified medical education resource of choice for live and online activities focusing on oncology and hematology. Based on identified needs and practice gaps, PER® provides high-quality, evidence-based activities featuring leading national and international faculty, with a focus on practice-changing advances and standards of care in treatment and disease management. PER® serves the oncology healthcare community, including physicians, fellows, physician assistants, advanced practice nurses, nurses, pharmacists, and researchers. PER® is part of the Plainsboro, N.J.-based Michael J. Hennessy Associates, Inc. (MJH) family of businesses. Learn more at www.gotoper.com and www.mjhassoc.com.
About Joan Lunden
Joan Lunden was the co-host of Good Morning America for nearly two decades, reporting from 26 countries on a diverse range of stories, from presidential elections to the Olympics. Her bestselling books include Joan Lunden’s Healthy Cooking, Joan Lunden’s Healthy Living, Wake-Up Calls and A Bend in the Road Is Not the End of the Road. Joan speaks all over the country about health & wellness, inspiration, and success. Her website, JoanLunden.com, has quickly become a go-to source of information for women, bringing together experts on a myriad of topics relevant to today’s woman, such as health, boomers, caregiving and family. In October, Joan joined NBC’s TODAY show as a special correspondent for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the show continues to follow her breast cancer journey on the air.
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Media Contacts for Physicians’ Education Resource®:
Becky Taylor, 609-240-6886, [email protected]
Robert Walker, 609-378-3730, [email protected]
