Modern healthcare just isn't getting the job done.
Scientists from all over the world are working diligently to help explain the complexity and variety of cancer, but the medical world has yet to make a breakthrough.
But to Nursing professor Dr. Sarah Kagan, the answer to understanding cancer -- and healthcare in general -- lies in comprehending the individual's experiences.
Healthcare "is about the individual as much as it is about the group," professor Kagan said to a crowd of 60 last night.
Kagan stressed that the medical world often attempts to explain complex conditions such as cancer in terms of group responses to experimental treatments. However, "if you look inside of a group, often there will be variation" -- each person responds to a treatment differently.
The reasons for those different responses, Kagan said, lies in the individual's lives -- both socially and biologically.
Through relationships and inquiries, doctors and nurses can gather more information about the individual's life, leading to a greater understanding of why the patient reacts to a specific type of treatment. Kagan told the crowd she "asks [her] cancer patients about their priorities" in hope of learning more about each individual.
By grasping a patient's personality and experiences, medical professionals can obtain insight into an area group-experiments often fail to reach.
Kagan believes that a more personal approach will be vital in the near future, as 20 percent of the U.S. population will be older than 65 -- with Philadelphia having one of the greatest elderly populations in America.
"What does it mean to be old or aged in America?" Kagan asked. "What is it to be chronologically old or biologically old?" Every human being ages differently, and through understanding personal human experiences, Kagan believes the medical world can take a step in finding the answers to these questions.
Professor Kagan's work in the field of cancer has earned her the MacArthur award, making her only the second nurse to ever receive the award.
She plans on using the $500,000 to take a sabbatical from her nursing duties and invest some time into more research.
The best part of receiving the award, Kagan said, is that it brings attention to her work -- an invaluable asset to any scientist.When asked whether being the recipient of the MacArthur "genius" award felt good, Professor Kagan, with a warm and humble smile, said, "Oh, yeah."
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