Page 36 - BusinessWest September 19, 2022

HEALTHCARE HEROES OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
basic questions regarding their cancer: ‘what is it?’ ‘how much is there?’ and ‘what are you going to do about it?’”
Obviously, the answer to that last question has changed most profoundly over the course of his career.
“I couldn’t have imagined it when I started; it’s changed that much,” Glynn said, gesturing toward the picture on the wall and how Mukherjee had carefully and effectively chronicled the advancements. “Seventy years ago, we did gruesome surgery, and then we had gruesome surgery with radiation, and then you added in chemotherapy. But now we’ve learned about cell biology and what drives cancer cells, so we look at genes, potential immunotherapy, a host of options; it’s absolutely exceptional.”
His ultimate goal is to bring to each patient an improved quality of life, which, as noted, varies with each case.
“If you come in, an oncologist sits down, describes to you what you have, and says, ‘this is not a curable disease; this is lung cancer that has spread to the bone,’ or ‘this is colorectal cancer that has gone to multiple different organs; you do not have a curable disease. Then, what becomes critically important is to give a treatment that
is going to ideally shrink the tumor and help someone live longer and better,” he explained. “You need to avoid treatments that are going
to make the treatment worse than the disease. Someone may come in with bad disease, but they’re not terribly symptomatic with it ... you don’t want to give them a treatment that’s going
to be terribly debilitating if you can’t give them some kind of promise that they’re going to live longer from it.
“On the other hand, if you take the other end of the spectrum, the 22-year-old kid with an advanced testicular cancer ... that kind can be cured,” he went on. “You have the conversation with him and say, ‘look, the next several months are going to be hell, but
of it’s not so good. Patients come in with very unrealistic expectations, and that becomes a very challenging conversation.”
For that reason, he brings patients to his office, positions them in front of his computer, and directs them to websites he considers reliable, with much of the rest he described as ‘storytelling.’
you’re going to get through it, and you’re walking away. That quality of life is a quality of life you’re giving a promise to — ‘you’re going to be OK,’ as opposed to the quality of life of ‘this isn’t curable, but we’re going to make sure you’re as comfortable as you possibly can be.
“We live in a world that’s packed with information. Some of it’s good, and some of it’s not so good. Patients come in with very unrealistic expectations,” and that becomes a very challenging conversation.
“The other thing that’s really important is
that you don’t give treatment for hope,” Glynn continued. “You give treatment to help people live longer and better.” All this brings him back to that integration of humanity and science that he spoke of earlier, a balance, he said, which is at the very heart of effective oncology care.
There are many aspects to this equation, he added, with one of the most important, and sometimes the challenging, being communication and providing information.
“And there are times when it gets really hard,” he explained. “We live in a world that’s packed with information. Some of it’s good, and some
He said patients — and, often, family members — want and need to know about everything from prognosis to the toxicity of treatments; from their therapeutic options to recovery time and what recovery will be like.
“But it’s also important to let them know that we’re going to have a support system there for them,” he explained. “There is going to be a doctor available 24/7.”
Throughout his career, Glynn has been that doctor, there for early-morning and late-night phone calls to make sure patients are heard, and staying with them often well beyond the end of treatment, regardless
of outcome.
Glynn
Continued on page 55
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