Cancer Stories: The Art Of Oncology

Listen to ASCO’s Journal of Clinical Oncology Art of Oncology article, "The Holiday Card” by Dr. Laura Vater, who is a gastrointestinal oncologist at Indiana University Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center. The article is followed by an interview with Vater and host Dr. Lidia Schapira. Dr Vater shares how she processed the unexpected loss of a patient and how a colleague unknowingly helped her cope. TRANSCRIPT Narrator: The Holiday Card, by Laura B. Vater, MD, MPH  I kept her family holiday card tucked into the side pocket of my black briefcase for a year and 3 months after she died. I carried it back and forth to the office each day, never viewing it but with a deep awareness of its presence. It was a transitional object, my therapist said. I took it with me for reasons that were not logical or even fully clear to me—perhaps part of me thought if I kept it in that dark space, then maybe her death was not real, after all. Death is not new to me. Much of my work as a GI oncologist is palliating my patient’s sym