Breastcancer.org Podcast

For nearly 25 years, Kelly Grosklags has dedicated her practice to minimizing suffering through her work in oncology, palliative care and hospice. An experienced therapist, Kelly is a licensed clinical social worker and a board-certified diplomat in clinical social work. She also earned a fellowship in grief counseling from the American Academy of Health Care Professionals and is the author of A C...

Deven McGraw is the chief regulatory officer for Ciitizen, a tech company creating a platform that helps people collect, organize, and share their medical records digitally. Before joining Ciitizen, she directed U.S. health privacy and security policy as deputy director for health information privacy at the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, the office that oversees H...

Kelly Grosklags is an experienced therapist who dedicated her practice to minimizing suffering through her work in oncology, palliative care, and hospice. Kelly is a licensed clinical social worker, a board-certified diplomate in clinical social work, and a fellow of the American Academy of Grief Counseling. Kelly now teaches and speaks frequently about end-of-life issues, including care, grief an...

Dr. Angela Rasmussen is an associate research scientist in the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Her research focuses on how hosts respond to infection by viruses in order to determine the severity of the infection and outcomes of the disease, as well as to look for new pathways to treat the disease and how to design vaccines. She is especial...

Kimberly Irvine is a two-time breast cancer survivor, passionate advocate, consultant, and CEO of her Chicago firm at kimberlyirvine.com. Kim was first diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 31 years old; her second diagnosis came four years later at age 35. Her treatments included surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation, all while being a mother to two young children. Currently, she has no evid...

Ashish Khanna, M.D., is a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation and part of the ReVital Cancer Rehabilitation Program. Dr. Khanna completed his residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Kingsbrook Jewish Rehabilitation Institute in Brooklyn, NY, where he became interested in cancer rehabilitation early on. He completed his fellow...

Mallori Thompson is manager of the Duke Cancer Patient Support Program at the Duke Cancer Institute. Mallori received her master’s degree in mental health counseling from North Carolina Central University. Her area of expertise is the psychosocial care of patients diagnosed with cancer and their families. Her research involves learning about how cancer affects people who’ve been diagnosed, as well...

Dana Donofree is a designer and founder of AnaOno. After being diagnosed with stage I estrogen-receptor-positive, HER2-positive breast cancer almost 10 years ago at the age of 27, Dana began to design her first pieces to meet her need for sexy, beautiful lingerie during a recovery period that she calls “anything but sexy and beautiful.” She has made it her mission to design lingerie specifically f...

Dr. Chirag Shah is a radiation oncologist and director of clinical research for the department of radiation oncology at the Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Shah received his bachelor's degree from Youngstown State University and his medical degree from Northeast Ohio Medical University. He completed his internship and residency at William Beaumont Hospital from 2007 to 2012 and joined the Cleveland Clinic S...

Vicki Flannery wears a number of hats: She’s a nurse in the Kansas City area; she’s a yoga instructor at weBuild4Life, a nonprofit that focuses on functional fitness and nutritional programs for cancer survivors and people with chronic illnesses; and she is a breast cancer survivor. Vicki’s yoga classes center around recovery, flexibility, and strengthening. Listen to the podcast to hear Vicki tal...

Jennifer Litton, associate professor of breast Medical Oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the results of the EMBRACA study she presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium showing that talazoparib, an experimental targeted therapy medicine, improved the time until the cancer grew in women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation who had been diagnosed with...

Dr. Terry Mamounas is medical director of the comprehensive breast program at Orlando Health UF Health Cancer Center and is considered one of the country’s top cancer doctors. At the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, he presented the latest results from a study looking at whether an additional 5 years of Femara after five years of a combination of tamoxifen and an aromatase inhibitor or 5...

Dr. Madeleine Tilanus-Linthorst is a member of the department of surgery at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. At the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, she presented research comparing breast cancer screening with MRI versus mammography in women at high risk of the disease because of strong family history. The results found that MRI found cancers earlier, when they w...

Dr. Brian Wojciechowski, Breastcancer.org’s medical adviser, specializes in the care of patients with cancer. He practices medical oncology in Delaware County, Pennsylvania at Riddle, Taylor, and Crozer Hospitals. His research has been presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, the world's largest scientific meeting on breast cancer. Listen to the podcast to hear Dr. Wojciechowski expla...

Dr. Jack Cuzick is director of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine and head of the Center for Cancer Prevention at the Queen Mary University of London, where he holds the title of John Snow Professor of Epidemiology. He is internationally known for his research showing tamoxifen can be used to treat estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer, as well as his work to help develop the Tyrer-Cu...

Dr. Luca Gianni, president of the Fondazione Michelangelo in Milan, discusses the results of the NeoTRIP trial, which looked to see if adding the immunotherapy medicine Tecentriq (chemical name: atezolizumab) to chemotherapy before surgery for triple-negative breast cancer with a high risk of recurrence could improve the time women lived without the cancer coming back.

Brian Wojciechowski, M.D., practices medical oncology in Delaware County, Pennsylvania at Riddle, Taylor, and Crozer hospitals and also serves as Breastcancer.org's medical adviser. A native of South Philadelphia, he trained at Temple University School of Medicine and Lankenau Medical Center. Dr. Wojciechowski is a sought-after speaker on the topics of medical ethics and the biology of cancer. In...

In September 2019, marathon swimmer Sarah Thomas did something that had never been done before: she swam the English Channel four times, non-stop. And she did this a year after completing treatment for stage II breast cancer. Sarah started swimming lessons at age one and was on a year-round swim team by age 10. She swam on her high school team and in College at the University of Connecticut where...

Dr. Kelly Shanahan, metastatic patient advocate, METAvivor board member, and former OB/GYN talks about the Mets, Sex, and Side Effects panel that she comoderated at the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The panel was cosponsored by Breastcancer.org and Sermonix Pharmaceuticals.

Barbara and Tim Bigelow discuss Barbara’s metastatic breast cancer diagnosis and the side effects she experienced as one of the first people treated with immunotherapy for breast cancer. A board member of METAvivor, Barbara also explains the Beneath the Breast project, the latest initiative of the #ThisIsMBC campaign.

Felicia Johnson, who is living with metastatic disease, and Sharon Rivera-Sanchez, who was diagnosed in 2015 with triple-negative breast cancer, talk about what they learned during the GRASP (Guiding Researchers & Advocates to Scientific Partnerships) program.

Dr. Stephanie Graff, director of the Breast Cancer Program at the Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute, talks about why sexual health is so important for people living with metastatic breast disease and offers tips for people who may be uncomfortable bringing up the topic with their oncologist.

Erica Guardascione is a speech-language pathologist at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in Saddle Brook, New Jersey. She’s also a curriculum developer and faculty member at ReVital Cancer Rehabilitation. After completing her undergraduate degree in speech-language pathology at Hofstra University, Erica went on to pursue graduate studies at Nova Southeastern University. She has practiced fo...

Christine Hodgdon was diagnosed with de novo metastatic breast cancer in April 2015 and became heavily involved in the metastatic community after attending a Metavivor advocacy event on Capitol Hill to push for more research funding for metastatic breast cancer. Christine volunteers with a number of breast cancer organizations, including Living Beyond Breast Cancer, METAvivor, and the Tigerlily Fo...

Ashish Khanna, M.D., is a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation and part of the ReVital Cancer Rehabilitation Program. Dr. Khanna completed his residency in physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Kingsbrook Jewish Rehabilitation Institute in Brooklyn, NY, where he became interested in cancer rehabilitation early on. He completed his fellow...