Cancer Doctors – Dr. Rudolph Willis
This video features Dr. Rudolph Willis, Chief of Medical Oncology at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) at Eastern Regional Medical Center. Dr. Willis recalls treating breast cancer survivor Nicole Cyrille with a compassionate, human approach:
"I have a young patient. She is very young actually. This patient has had a very difficult time because she’s a healthy, athletic person who unfortunately now has this diagnosis. She has had great difficulty not only accepting this, but the fear level also seemed to have obliterated her capacity to stay focused, to pursue the course that we needed to take to eradicate her disease.
And, at the peak of that difficulty, I looked her in the eye and I reminded her: This is a ship, it’s a ship on the sea and we are in the midst of a storm. And you are the captain of the ship. You have a key to the engine to make the ship go where we want it to go. But, I’m going to keep a copy in my pocket for safe-keeping. So if we lose one, we have the other and we’re secure…"
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