Your lung cancer care has an entire team behind it at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center on the Johns Hopkins Bayview campus, says radiation oncologist Russell K. Hales, M.D. The goal of these multi-disciplinary teams is to provide faster, more effective, coordinated care for lung cancer patients.
Who will be on your lung cancer care team? Hales notes that the multi-disciplinary treatment teams include several types of specialist physicians: “Not only a thoracic surgeon, or a surgeon who specializes in lung cancer, but a medical oncologist, or a specialist in chemotherapy. I'm a radiation oncologist, and involved in decision making with lung cancer patients, in terms of radiation treatment. Pulmonologists look at the overall health of the lungs, and help keep these healthy during therapy,” Hales explains.
Other health professionals also guide your treatment, he notes: “Nursing helps to keep our patients healthy during therapy, and is a critical component in our team. Pathologists evaluate the biopsy, radiologists look at scans, and then the whole compliment to the rest of the team: nutritionists, social work, pain management, and smoking cessation. These are all interconnected and vital parts of our team, to help make the best decision for individual patient.”
You can watch a video of the lung cancer multi-disciplinary treatment team in action at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center on the Johns Hopkins Bayview campus, and find out more from Dr. Hales about lung cancer, treatments for it, and innovative new research to help lung cancer patients in the free webinar, Lung Cancer: Serious Treatment for a Serious Cancer.