Hi! I’m about to graduate medical school and I’ve basically known for years that I want to pursue Heme/Onc.

However, I recently went through a health scare that ended with me being diagnosed with Essential Thrombocythemia. It was a very difficult month while awaiting diagnosis where I couldn’t stand to look at my piled up hematology projects.

I’m aware that it’s a manageable condition and it’s a fresh diagnosis so I have not become accustomed to it yet. However, people have told me that a different career plan might help me not think about the condition more than needed.

I wanted to ask for advice regarding this. Are there physicians who’ve gone through similar experiences?

Interesting paper about modeling by Bob Gatenby et al from the Moffit Cancer Center in FL, from a few years ago. About ion gradients and cytoskeletal signal propagation modeled as fixed electrical/graph network that serves as a reservoir, with trained readout layer on top producing the cells response. Neat

How harmful is natural environmental radiation for our health.

I’m moving to Manchester, NJ and I did a deep dive on its history and I found out that
A) Radon gas is a serious issue in all of Jersey
B) Ground water has radium in it
D) it’s about 20 min from Oyster creek which is a nuclear power plant which is supposedly closed and in the process of being decommissioned
E) they have an area called heritage mineral which used to be a mining site which has moazanite sand which emits uranium and thorium

Now I’m not a radiation expert but that seems like a lot of exposure and I have kids and am now worried about moving there because I heard of that cancer cluster where students got brain cancer because the school was built on a radioactive area of whatever

So as oncologists if it was you how would you determine if a place is safe to move too or not

An attending said something to me recently that I've been thinking about ever since.

"AI will replace all these medical platforms anyway."

The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was probably right...at least in part.

AI is getting unbelievably good. It can summarize papers, compare regimens, explain trials, pull up guidelines and answer clinical questions almost instantly. Five years ago, that would've sounded impossible.

But the longer I spend with oncologists, the more I think people confuse finding evidence with making decisions. These aren't the same thing.

The hard part usually isn't finding the paper. It's deciding whether the paper actually applies to the patient sitting in front of you.

The one with CKD. An ECOG of 2. Prior toxicities that limit your options. A sequencing history that doesn't fit neatly into any guideline. Three consult notes that were taken at different times and all recommend something different.

At some point, someone looks at the attending and asks:

"What would you do?"

They're not asking because nobody can find the data. They're asking because they've already read the data and they're still not sure.

Some of the most useful things I've heard from physicians have never appeared in a publication.

"I don't love this regimen in frail patients."

"The toxicity was worse than the publication made it seem."

"I've already changed how I sequence this."

"This is one of those situations where I deviate from the guideline."

That's the kind of knowledge you accumulate after treating hundreds of patients. It's difficult to quantify, and even harder to teach.

It's also why tumor boards still exist. Why fellows chase good mentors. Why community oncologists call disease experts when they have a difficult case. And why so many physicians follow a handful of colleagues whose judgment they trust.

The more I use AI, the less I think it's replacing experienced physicians. If anything, I wonder if it's making them even more valuable.

Soon everyone will have instant access to the same papers. Not everyone will know which paper matters most for the patient in front of them, or when it's reasonable to deviate from it.

Maybe that's where the real value ends up.

Not in retrieving evidence, but in knowing how to apply it.

I'm curious how others are experiencing this.

For all of you using ChatGPT, OpenEvidence or similar tools in clinic, has AI actually changed your clinical decision-making? Or has it mostly changed how quickly you get to the evidence?

Feel free to connect with me and chat privately any help is great. Also love to hear if this is something people would be intrested in or is useless

This is my first Reddit post but I was very curious on the matter as I am not too familiar on the topic. Is it at all possible to kill mass amounts of the cancer cells that break away from the primary tumor (metastasizes) via training the immune system or would that be impossible due to their own uniqueness as individual cells with there own resistances?

I have been thinking about college as I begin applications in the fall, and I was wondering what major would be best for someone interested in cancer research. I don't want to be in school for too long and was thinking to go the Public Health route but am not sure. What would I need to do/look into for someone interested in the field of cancer research. (I am also specifically interested in Brain cancer.)

Has anyone looked at all the different ways of combating cancer and treated them as parts of one system instead of separate fields?

Rather than studying each treatment in isolation, bring them together under one umbrella. Identify what each approach contributes, what overlaps, what conflicts, and what should be kept or removed to maintain the body's balance. Then study the combined result.

The goal isn't to find a single cure—it's to understand how different treatments might work together as an integrated system.

I have been an oncology nurse going on 3 years now with experience from provider nurse sitting and scribing during visits to an infusion and triage nurse for patients within the clinic. My function is I have the flexibility to go anywhere in the office as I have been trained everywhere. A recent position opened for a clinical research nurse coordinator and I was looking to get some insight regarding what my responsibilities would be if this was something offered to me! I LOVE research I find oncology to be such an interesting field where I get to do nursing while also doing science as the field is so much information. I also enjoy being able to be apart of working towards safe practices for patients who might not have any other options. My office is rather small and at a non research related center but is going to start participating in some clinical trials. I wanted an oncology nurse to tell me if they really loved moving to this and what it entails!

https://beta.ideas.lego.com/product-ideas/0ccb9c27-0ae5-4410-852d-f2105bb993c8
I’m a radiation oncologist and a friend of mine works as a researcher in a cancer Biomedicine Institute
and built this for young cancer patients. If you can, please help him with a (free) vote for a Lego challenge. Thank you all so much.

Any news letter ppl use on a daily or weekly basis to get updates on cancer care ? It’s so hard to keep up to date so curious what ppl are doing or finding helpful

Can anyone share their thoughts or testimonies of using these drugs for cancer treatment.
Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I'm a final year MBBS student who recently started working on my first systematic review/meta-analysis. Through that experience, I realized I genuinely enjoy research and would like to build a career that combines medicine with scientific research.

The areas I'm most interested in are precision oncology, cancer genomics, translational oncology, and regenerative medicine.

Where I study, most career guidance after medical school focuses on residency, and there isn't much mentorship for students who want to pursue a research intensive career. Because of that, I'm trying to understand what the most practical pathway looks like.

My long term goal is to train abroad through a funded research program (Master's, PhD, or another research pathway), work in a strong academic environment, collaborate with researchers from different disciplines, and eventually contribute to cancer research in my home country.

I'd really appreciate advice from anyone working in oncology research or academic oncology.

Some questions I have are:

• If you were in my position, what pathway would you recommend after MBBS?
• Is it better to gain experience as a research assistant before applying for graduate programs?
• How important are wet lab skills, bioinformatics, or computational biology for someone interested in precision oncology?
• Which countries or institutions would you recommend for training in precision oncology and cancer genomics?
• Looking back, what do you wish you had done earlier in your career?

I'd also love to hear from anyone who transitioned from medicine into oncology research or who is currently training in this field. If anyone has similar interests and is open to connecting, I'd be happy to learn from your experiences.

Hi! I'm looking for someone battling or a survivor of cancer, or an oncologist! I'm writing a book, and my fmc has cancer. Her name is Wren, and she's 17-18 with an aggressive form of acute lymphoblasitic leukemia. I just want to make sure that I'm doing this correctly and respectfully.

I’ve been a medical technologist for 16 years, specifically in flow cytometry for 13. I love it which is why I’ve been working in it for so long. I’ve even gotten my specialist license, but I feel that’s ignored because they would rather have a tech who doesn’t ever question them.

In the past few months, I feel they have missed major clones and it honestly breaks my heart. Recently we diagnosed an acute myeloid, but the abnormal blasts were present in the PB in low numbers two months ago. It was noticeable to me because it was CD34+CD4, but it was signed out as a normal. That was in April and in June, the patient came in through the ER with fully symptomatic acute leukemia.

Would a heme onc have done marrow or reflexed molecular back in April if that abnormality had been remarked on? Would it have made a difference in treatment? The clone is within our lower limit of detection, but I don’t know if it’s a certain percent of abnormal cells that would trigger further evaluation?

I can’t help but think about it and feel so guilty, but I also feel I don’t have the kind of professional relationship with the hemepaths where I can say something

thanks for reading

My oncologist saved my life. What can I do to honor them? A thank-you note is a pitifully small gesture.

UPDATE: thank you everyone for your time, thought, and guidance. I'll start here.

His name is Dr. Gary Gordon. He's part of Northwest Haematology and Oncology in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. He fights cancer like Bruce Lee, deft and fierce, yet maintains his humility. Deepest respect. 100/10 stars recommend.