A Note of Gratitude

Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology

“A Note of Gratitude” by Austin J. Price: A senior resident honors his grandmother and expresses gratitude to a doctor who had a long lasting influence on him and his family.

TRANSCRIPT

Narrator: “A Note of Gratitude” by Austin J. Price, MD-MPH (10.1200/JCO.21.01781)

Mary Ann Richards-Elbrader was many things. Born in rural Kansas in 1936, she was a product of the pre-War Depression Era. That fact, I am sure, had an impact on the type of person she would become—a hard worker to a fault and a fiercely loyal family woman. She was the mother of five, the grandmother to 13 including me, and a friend to all, rarely knowing a stranger. Only a high school graduate herself, she believed wholly in the value of education, something that no other person could ever take away. Owing to that belief, all of her children earned college degrees, something that made her immensely proud. She was quick to anger and even quicker to apologize. Devoutly faithful, she taught her children to believe in something greater than themselves. On a more lighthearted note, she was known to lay back in the recliner after a hard day with a stiffly poured vodka. I recall the kindness ever present in her eyes, seen through large, clunky, 80’s style frames and the lines on her face that easily divulged to the world she was someone who loved to laugh. The fact that she became a patient with cancer in 1995 is quite likely the least interesting thing about her.

My grandmother’s journey with cancer began, as many things did for her, in the service of others. She was a frequent blood donor. After giving blood once, she was found to be anemic and instructed to see her primary care doctor. The diagnosis came swiftly— colorectal cancer. From what I have been told, the goal initially was cure. I was very young and hardly able to grasp the nuances of her clinical course. Nonetheless, I know she had surgery and chemotherapy, and for a while after that, everything seemed fine. My mother and aunts recall a discussion when there was mention of age spots in her liver that would be monitored. That probably seemed harmless at the time, but it sounds so ominous to me now. Indeed after a 1.5-year remission, my grandmother experienced a roaring recurrence, this time in the liver. As tragic as it was, I share these details merely as a prelude to something wonderful.

It was 1998, and my grandmother found herself seeking a second opinion at the University of Nebraska from a medical oncologist named Dr Tempero. As my family recalls, there was a clinical trial for patients with colorectal cancer metastatic to the liver ongoing at that time. My grandmother initially qualified but was soon disqualified for medical reasons. Despite that, our entire family quickly came to thoroughly appreciate this oncologist. What it was about her that resonated so deeply is difficult to express in words. In my mother’s terms, it was her confident, no nonsense, but never cold, demeanor that provided assurance that she knew her stuff while still having her patients’ best interests at heart. She was also very honest from the outset in a compassionate, preparatory way, without becoming bleak. Perhaps most striking, my mother recalls, was their last meeting in Omaha, when she explained that there was no more she could do from a medical prospective. There were tears in her eyes, but she did not cry. She exuded both empathy and resolve, which made her more human but no less professional. My grandmother succumbed to cancer on September 20, 1999. I was 8 years old. I never spoke to her specifically about Dr Tempero, but I remember hearing stories about that doctor in Omaha who was so acutely aware of the human experience.

A decade later, I was about to start my freshman year of college. I had always been reasonably smart, fairly ambitious, and done well in school. However, as an 18-year-old, I shall admit that I was more preoccupied with the social aspects of college than I was with what might happen in 10 years. Slowly, I became more interested in the prospect of going on to medical school. Much of my early childhood had been fraught with my grandmother’s illness and I recalled the various roles physicians had played in her life. My mother always told me, "If you are going to be a doctor, be like Dr Tempero.” I realized early on becoming such a physician would require much more than good grades and perseverance; it would require a constant commitment to being present, humble, and empathetic, without losing the confidence that allowed others to find comfort and value in my assessments. Ultimately, I decided that was a challenge I wanted and needed to pursue. With the unending support of my family and friends, I got into medical school and graduated in May 2019.

I am now an internal medicine resident in San Francisco. My residency experience has been greatly different from what I anticipated. As the COVID-19 pandemic descended on our hospital, I found myself as an intern charged with facilitating end-of-life discussions through FaceTime, fully clad in personal protective equipment. Continually, I had to explain to families of the critically ill why they could not visit their loved ones. There was no instruction manual on how to have such conversations, but I know every day I channeled what I had garnered from my own family’s experiences with the health care system. I am unsure if I succeeded in the ways that Dr Tempero did, but I have never stopped trying.

In December 2020, I was triaging patients from the emergency department. While gathering the history on one patient, I asked “who is your oncologist?” When he replied, “Dr Tempero,” I froze. Surely it could not be the same doctor, the same one I had heard about since I was 8 years old? The one whose unique abilities I would always tried to emulate? When I left the room, it did not take much time on Google to realize it was. I shared portions of this story with my patient, who was extremely complimentary of her. That evening, when I got home, I called my mother to share this truly cathartic experience. Ultimately, it was she who implored me to personally reach out. I sat down at my desk and wrote her a note of gratitude. The following day I got an email notification while at work. I waited until I had a few minutes to read her response in privacy:

Dear Austin,

Your letter is, without a doubt, the most touching

letter I have ever received. I know how busy you must

be right now, and I was doubly honored to know that

you took the time to write this thoughtful message.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I have had the privilege of helping so many patients

over the years and each one becomes a gift. I may not

be able to turn the course of their disease but I can

always make the journey easier.

On a Wednesday evening in early May 2021, a little over 23 years after she was my grandmother’s doctor in Omaha, I met Dr Tempero for the first time. I joined her and her husband at their apartment in San Francisco for a glass of wine. We discussed medicine, our mutual love of travel, and of course the unique situation that precipitated our meeting. I could easily perceive the qualities my family had always admired about her. She was interested in my story and my goals, but yet forthcoming about her life, family, and career. Her persona was welcoming, but yet demanded respect. Two hours later, she walked me downstairs and waited until my Uber arrived at her door. As I rode across the city, I contemplated the miraculousness of these events. I wished, as I always will, that I had more memories of my grandmother that did not center upon her illness, but the reality is I do not. What I do have is the memory of this encounter that has left me with a sense of inner peace and optimism, reassured that I am exactly where I am meant to be.

I write this in gratitude to a doctor, who had no way of knowing her kindnesses would have such lasting influence. Of course, I also hope to honor my grandmother’s legacy. I know she would be honored to see how her own misfortune somehow managed to be the genesis of such positivity in my life. I believe she would also challenge us all, as do I, to be like that doctor in Omaha.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Welcome to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology, brought to you by the ASCO Podcast Network, a collection of 9 programs covering a range of educational and scientific content and offering enriching insight into the world of cancer care.

You can find all of the shows including this one at podcast.asco.org. I'm your host Lidia Schapira, Associate Editor for Art of Oncology and Professor of Medicine at Stanford University.

With me today is Dr. Austin Price, a senior resident in internal medicine at California Pacific Medical Center, soon to be an infectious disease fellow at the University of Kansas. We'll be discussing his Art of Oncology article, “A Note of Gratitude”. Our guest has no disclosures. Austin, welcome to our podcast.

Dr. Austin Price: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Let me start by asking if you are, in addition to a writer, also an avid reader?

Dr. Austin Price: Yes, in the past at least I have been somewhat stymied by going into residency, but in the past, I liked to read a lot.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: So, tell me a little bit about your past readings and maybe favorite authors or books, something you'd like to share with our listeners.

Dr. Austin Price: I like to read about medical history. And so, one of my favorite books actually is by Dr. Paul Offit, and it talks about the early days of vaccines and how there was, I think it's called The Cutter Incident, but it's a great book.

I may be misquoting the actual name, but great book. When I was in Baltimore, and doing my master's, he gave some guest lectures. And that's where I became acquainted with some of his work, I like reading that.

So, those are the kinds of things that I really enjoy. And then I think, of course, I have always really enjoyed F. Scott Fitzgerald, even from high school, and Hemingway.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Very classically trained. Tell me a little bit about writing. Writing is a way of sharing an experience or perhaps processing a difficult encounter with a patient, is that something that you routinely do or have thought of?

Dr. Austin Price: Yeah, it's definitely become something that's been more robust as I've gone through residency. I think part of that certainly had to do with the pandemic, and just not being able to be as close with people and have those personal relationships. And I found myself kind of cut off, maybe from a support system that I would have otherwise had, being in California with most of my friends and family in the Midwest.

And so, I used writing as a way to kind of compartmentalize my feelings and my interactions with patients and to check in with myself. And I find that it's therapeutic and also enjoyable.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: That's fantastic. Let's talk about the essay that you submitted and we published in Art of Oncology, which is a way of honoring the memory of your grandmother, who had cancer when you were a child, and also talks about your sense of vocation and this ideal that was held up to you by your family of aspiring to be as empathic and wise, as a doctor, who is an oncologist who helped your grandmother. Let's start a little bit with your grandmother's illness and how you remember that now that you are a physician.

Dr. Austin Price: Yeah, certainly. I mean, I just remember as a child, her getting very sick, and finding out that she had cancer, and knowing that that was a bad thing, but not really knowing any of the details of it.

As it turned out, she had colorectal cancer, and had surgery, for a short time she seemed okay. And then she got sick again, this time with metastatic disease to the liver. And of course, she was very sick then and ended up seeking out a second opinion from an oncologist who becomes the person in the story that I write about, in Omaha.

At that time, there really wasn't anything that could be done to save her life, essentially. But the interactions that they had were very impactful to both her and the rest of our family. So much so that all through my life, my family members said, if you want to become a doctor, which I thought kind of early on, I did, that I should be like this particular person, Dr. Tempero. And so, she had just always been this kind of person on a pedestal, if you will.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Let's talk a little bit about the impact that Dr. Tempero and her consultation had on your family. Can you tell me a little bit more about how they talked about that particular meeting?

Many of us who are in oncology and have been for a long time often talk about the fact that there can be a therapeutic relationship between the oncologist and the patient and the family that can actually help during difficult times and even through bereavement. But it's so interesting to me to hear you speak about it from the perspective of a family member. Tell me a little bit about how that relationship impacted the way the family understood the illness and how they went through their loss?

Dr. Austin Price: I definitely think that there was a therapeutic relationship established. And I think in a way, Dr. Tempero managed to be preparatory in the sense that she knew that the outcome was likely not going to be good.

I think she did that without ever being bleak or ever losing hope, in doing so she really kind of helped, in her own way, move us slowly towards accepting reality, and then learning how to move forward and enjoy the time that we had left together.

I think all of my mom's siblings remember her in the same way, they really trusted her in such a robust way that her assessment that there really wasn't anything else medically that could be done, really helped them to come to terms with it and to refocus their goals, and those goals being to spend as much quality time with my grandmother that they could.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: And as you've gone through your medical training, I imagine that they'll have to dangle this idea of this ideal doctor in front of you more than once. How have you interpreted or internalized this aspiration to also be wise, empathic and so kind to your patients?

Dr. Austin Price: Yeah, it's definitely something that my mother in particular is always reminding me to do, because it's not always easy, as we all know. And there are times when I'm frustrated and tired and all those sorts of things.

So, she and I've had many conversations where I'm maybe lamenting about feeling overworked or this or that. And she's always reminding me to be present and to realize that, although I'm tired that I'm oftentimes interfacing with people at bad points in their life.

So, I always try to keep that at the forefront of my mind and try to decompress before each patient interaction, in hopes that I can be at least to some degree like Dr. Tempero was for my family. I'm sure that I don't always succeed in the ways that she did, but I hope that I do most of the time.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: I assume Dr. Tempero would reassure you that even she may have a bad day or a bad hour in a day. Your essay has a moment of suspense and a twist in the plot when you find yourself now as a physician in an emergency room looking after a patient who tells you that their oncologist is none other than Dr. Tempero. Tell us a little bit about what that felt like?

Dr. Austin Price: Well, I mean, it was just altogether shocking, honestly, because I had never met her and I really had never even Googled her name in the past. She was just always this person that my mother talked about so much. And then I had come to a kind of honor but I assumed for all I knew that she was still in Omaha.

And so, when I heard this name, I thought, well, how many oncologists named Dr. Tempero are? Well, there's probably more than just her, but I immediately left the room and started to Google and realized, just quickly, that it was her or that I assumed that it was because she had done her training in Omaha at the University of Nebraska.

It was shocking and emotional too, I will say. I immediately remember texting my mom and being like, oh my gosh, this patient just told me that Dr. Tempero was their oncologist. And I have to go back in there and finish the assessment because I kind of had to leave the room to just decompress a little.

Yeah, it was a wonderful feeling and also just one of those moments where you're just like, life is so interesting in the way that you come into contact with people and in situations that are just so unique.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: And then you reached out to her?

Dr. Austin Price: I did. Yeah, my mom told me, she said, she may not have time to get back to you about this but you should at least reach out and explain how this made you feel. And thank her for the way that she treated our family and thanked her for the ways in which she or the idea of her has kind of impacted the type of physician that you aspire to be.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: So, you wrote to her, and she wrote you back. What was that like and what happened after that?

Dr. Austin Price: Well, I just remember being shocked that she wrote back so quickly. I know that she's incredibly busy. And so, I was very happy that she'd written back so quickly. Honestly, when it was written, this all happened at Christmas time. So, I wasn't able to be there because of COVID and working through the holidays. It was just the first time in 30 years that my mom hadn't seen me for the holidays.

So, she was emotional about that. And so, getting to read Dr. Tempero’s response to the family over FaceTime on Christmas, really was kind of like the best gift that they could have gotten. They really enjoyed it. That kind of helped to stifle the blow a little bit of me not being able to be there for the first time.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: I'm just getting teary just thinking about that scene of you're reading this message to the family over FaceTime, and then talking Dr. Tempero invited you to meet her, and you had a long conversation, tell us a little bit or share with us what you feel is appropriate so that we can understand how important that reunion was for both of you?

Dr. Austin Price: Yeah, sure. From the first response email, she said, 'I would like for us to get together and for us to meet in person when it's safe to do so', because when this interaction initially happened, none of us had been vaccinated yet, and so we're still in the throes of COVID and still petrified and all those things.

And so, once we had been vaccinated, I reached out to her and said, I actually have started to write this essay, and I just wanted to know your thoughts on it. And she read it and she said, and this was many iterations ago when it wasn't as good as I think it is now, but she was like, 'Oh, I'm very much in support of this and I'm very honored, and by the way, we're vaccinated now and it's time for us to finally meet.' So, we did. It was great.

I met her and her husband at their apartment in Mission Bay in San Francisco. We just had a lovely evening, had a glass of wine, some hors d'oeuvres, and just talked about this unique situation that had brought us together, and also talked a lot about my life and what I want to do in my career and my future.

She was more interested in me than sharing so much about her life, but was very forthcoming when I would ask her questions as well, then also just had this kind of commanding aura, but welcoming at the same time, just very likable. I don't know how to explain it, other than that it was amazing and I was so thrilled to experience it.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: I think you've explained it very well. It's a beautiful story for us to read, for all of us who have been in oncology for all these years, and those who are just starting, it's really inspiring.

We think a lot about mentoring our students or junior faculty, but the idea that we in our clinical roles, can also have sort of in a way an indirect mentorship, relationship with or an influence with other young members of the families is really beautiful and moving.

I thank you so much for having sent it to us and for sharing that experience. Is there something else, Austin, that you would like our readers and listeners to know about the essay itself, your family, or the intention that you had that brought you to not only write but share your writing so publicly?

Dr. Austin Price: Yeah, I hope to honor my grandmother, because I think it's been interesting, this experience brought me a lot of joy, and I think it brought our family a lot of joy.

The fact that that came from such a sad place and sad reality, I think is really great. For clinicians, it's just really important to realize how far-reaching our interactions with patients can be because we are seeing them, oftentimes, really in bad times of their lives, times that they're going to remember for a long time. And so, we can then be remembered in kind of good ways and bad.

I think it's so unique in the situation that in an interaction that Dr. Tempero had with my family, nearly a quarter-century ago, it only took the mention of her name, to bring back this whole flood of memories and spawn all of this. I think that's really cool and something that we should always be cognizant of. We have very far-reaching impacts for our patients. I just think that that's cool, and a good thing to be reminded of.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: I think it's very cool too and I thank you so much, Austin, for sharing your essay and for taking part in this conversation.

Dr. Austin Price: Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lidia Schapira: Until next time, thank you for listening to this JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology Podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard today, don't forget to give us a rating or review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. While you're there, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode of JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology Podcast. This is just one of many ASCOs podcasts. You can find all of the shows at podcast.asco.org

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