to the eighth episode of Supportive Care Matters, a podcast Hosted by Medical Oncologist Professor Bogda Koczwara AM from Adelaide, Australia.
In this episode, Bogda chats to Professor Tom J Smith. They discuss the meaning of “supportive” versus “palliative” care and how to use these terms to overcome fear and stigma, and put patient’s needs first.
Tom is Director of Palliative Medicine for Johns Hopkins Medicine, a cancer survivor and a proponent of Scrambler Therapy.
This series is proudly produced by The Oncology Network.
Host:
Bogda Koczwara AM
Professor Bogda Koczwara AM
Professor Bogda Koczwara AM is a medical oncologist and a senior staff specialist at the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer in Adelaide, Australia.
Professor Koczwara completed her oncology training at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, USA, and received a Master in Bioethics degree from Monash University, Australia.
Her clinical interests revolve around management of breast cancer, cancer survivorship, psycho-oncology and supportive care as well as health services development, integration with primary care and cancer education for health care professionals.
Connect with Bogda on Twitter: @bogda_koczwara
Guest:
Tom Smith
Professor Tom J. Smith
Dr. Smith is an oncologist and palliative care specialist with a lifelong interest in better symptom management and improving access to high quality affordable care. As an oncologist he specialized in comprehensive multi-disciplinary cancer management for 35 years. With Patrick Coyne and others, he helped start the Thomas Palliative Care Unit and Program at VCU-MCV in the late 1990s, one of the first academic palliative care programs in the country. He and colleagues showed that palliative care improved symptoms, allowed patients and families to choose the care they wanted, did not cost more than usual care, and even improved survival.
Currently, he is the Director of Palliative Medicine for Johns Hopkins Medicine, charged with integrating palliative care into all the Johns Hopkins venues. During his 11 years there, the PC program has grown from 0.2 of a physician and 2 nurses (for a 1000 bed hospital) to 15 physicians, 7 advance practice nurses and 1 PA, 3 nurses, 3 pharmacists, 3 social workers, and a chaplain. They now see ~12% of the admitted adult patients, and have an active research program.
Dr. Smith has been recognized in “Best Doctors in America” for many years and is a Fellow in the American College of Physician, the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. In 2015, he received the ACS Trish Greene Award for “outstanding research that benefits cancer patients and their families”, and in 2018 was recognized as a “Visionary in Palliative Care” by AAHPM. In 2019 he received the Project on Death in America (PDIA) Palliative Medicine National Leadership Award, and the Walther Foundation-ASCO award for excellence in supportive oncology. In 2020 he received the Ellen Stovall Award from the National Coalition of Cancer Survivors that recognizes individuals, organizations, or other entities who demonstrate innovation in improving cancer care for patients in America. He has published over 450 articles, editorials and reviews, and helped write the test questions for the ABIM hospice and palliative medicine exam.
He is also a cancer survivor, living with recurrent prostate cancer. Before chemotherapy-induced lung injury 5 years ago, he was a mediocre but serious ultramarathoner, have competed in 3 100 mile and 10 50 mile trail runs, over 75 marathons, and having run across the Grand Canyon.
Connect with The Oncology Network on Twitter: @OncologyNewsAus
