A Chance to Heal with Cold Hard Steel: The Fine Surgical Line Between Healing and Harming

Описание: Listen to JCO's Art of Oncology article, "A Chance to Heal with Cold Hard Steel” by Dr. Taylor Goodstein, who is a fellow at Emory University. The article is followed by an interview with Goodstein and host Dr. Mikkael Sekeres. Dr. Goodstein shares a story about surgery, grief, and being courageous in the face of one's own fallibility.

TRANSCRIPT

AOO 26E01

Narrator: A Chance to Heal with Cold Hard Steel, Taylor, Goodstein, MD

Mikkael Sekeres: Welcome back to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. This ASCO podcast features intimate narratives and perspectives from authors exploring their experiences in oncology. I am your host, Mikkael Sekeres. I am Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Hematology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami. Joining us today is Dr. Taylor Goodstein, urologic oncology fellow at Emory University and our first Narrative Medicine Contest winner, to discuss her Journal of Clinical Oncology article, "A Chance to Heal with Cold Hard Steel."

Dr. Goodstein and I have agreed to address each other by first names.

Taylor, thank you for contributing to the Journal of Clinical Oncology, to our contest, and for joining us to discuss your winning article.

Taylor Goodstein: Thank you so much for having me. This is a great honor.

Mikkael Sekeres: The honor was ours, actually. We had, if you haven't heard, a very competitive contest. We had a total of 159 entries. We went through a couple of iterations of evaluating every entry to make it to our top five, and then you were the winner. So thank you so much for contributing this outstanding essay both to our Art of Oncology Narrative Medicine Contest and also ultimately to JCO.

Taylor Goodstein: Oh, thank you so much.

Mikkael Sekeres: So, I was wondering if we could start by asking you to tell us something about yourself. Where are you from, and walk us through your career and how you made it to this point?

Taylor Goodstein: Well, I grew up in a small town in Colorado - Glenwood Springs, Colorado. It is on the Western Slope, about 45 minutes north of Aspen. I went all the way to the east coast for college, where I ended up minoring in creative writing. So writing has been a part of my medical journey kind of throughout. I went to medical school back in Colorado at University of Colorado in Aurora, and then I did my residency training at he Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. And now I am at Emory University for fellowship. And I have been kind of writing all throughout, trying to make sense of the various journeys we go on throughout the experiences we have with going through our medical training.

Mikkael Sekeres: That is amazing, and I noticed how you emphasized the "The" in Ohio State University.

Taylor Goodstein: Yes, we fought hard for that "The."

Mikkael Sekeres: Right, as do we at The University of Miami. Yes.

What drew you to surgery, and specifically surgical oncology?

Taylor Goodstein: My dad is a surgeon. My dad is an ear, nose, and throat doctor. And I am essentially him. We are the same person, and it made him very, very happy. So when I was looking at different medical specialties, I knew I was going to do a surgical subspecialty, and that is what I was drawn to. And then I was looking for the one that felt right, ended up finding urology, and then throughout my residency journey, I really gravitated towards cancer care. I really loved the patient population taking care of cancer patients, and surgically it felt like a way that I was going to be engaged and challenged throughout my career as there is so much that is always changing in oncology, almost too fast to keep up with all of it. But that is what really, ultimately, drew me to that career path.

Mikkael Sekeres: It is great that you had a role model in your dad as well to bring you into this field.

Taylor Goodstein: Well, he is very disappointed that I did urology rather than ENT, and he’s in private and I am going into academics, so there is plenty of room for disappointment.

Mikkael Sekeres: I am sure the last thing in the world he is is disappointed in you. And I will say, so I am able to see your background here, our listeners of course are listening to a podcast and they are not. You have a very impressive bookshelf with a lot of different types of books on it.

Taylor Goodstein: This is your guys' background! This was the option of one of the backgrounds I could choose for coming onto this. I didn't want to do my real background because I have a cat who is wandering around and was going to be very distracting.

Mikkael Sekeres: That’s funny!

Taylor Goodstein: But I did like the books. The books felt like a good option for me. I do have a big bookshelf; books are very important to me. I don't do anything on Kindle. I like the paper and stuff like that, so I do have a big bookshelf.

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