Cancer Stories: The Art Of Oncology

Listen to ASCO’s Journal of Clinical Oncology essay, “Chasing Milestones” by Dr. Ameish Govindarajan, a post-doctoral research fellow at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center. The essay is followed by an interview with Govindarajan and host Dr. Lidia Schapira. As a young physician, Govindarajan shares his personal and professional experiences as a cancer patient with non-small cell lung cancer and the importance of shared decision-making between oncologists and patients.   TRANSCRIPT Narrator: Chasing Milestones, by Ameish Govindarajan, MD (10.1200/JCO.22.01379) You always remember the moment your world comes to a halt. Everything comes into stark reality, especially the inane—the socks you were wearing or the type of ceiling tiles over your hospital bed. I lay there alone, a medical student in my 20s, chest tubes emerging from my side. My doctor had just informed me that I had 6-8 months to live. I can still picture those ceiling tiles. What started as an innocuous, yet persistent, cough proved resistant