When it comes to cancer treatment, Kim Vernick has seen almost everything. Over the past decade, Kim has been treated five times for two different cancers at Penn Medicine's Abramson Cancer Center.
Kim visits Penn Medicine a few times a year for cancer treatment and routine CAT scans. She had a scan recently for the first time since April, when the pandemic was at its height in Philadelphia.
"I figured here's all these patients, and all this traffic, and I've been staying at home, quarantining and doing very little," says Kim. "But when I went into Penn, I was so pleasantly surprised: I didn't feel like I was at risk at all."
She marvels at how quick and efficient each step in radiation oncology treatment has become: She sits to wait. A minute later, she is invited into a room to prepare for her scan. Immediately, someone disinfects her seat, then places a card on it that says, "This seat is reserved." And it goes on like that the entire visit.
"Then I went back to the seat. They took the card off, and I sat down. I didn't even touch the card. I went back to my scan, and by the time I came back out, my chair had obviously been disinfected, because it was wet."
Kim says that the meticulous cleaning and other changes to care are reassuring for a long-time patient. She is often focused on her scan--and its result. Seeing Penn Medicine's COVID-19 safety protocols in person, she says, made this scan a little bit easier.
Receiving Innovative Care and Treatment Long Before the Pandemic
Kim's initial diagnosis of pancreatic cancer came in 2010. Though she knew that pancreatic cancer was not easy to beat, she was able to join a clinical trial for Avastin®, a drug that works in concert with chemotherapy to starve tumors. Avastin hadn't been used to treat pancreatic cancer before. The innovative clinical trial, and her medical oncologist Ursina Teitelbaum, MD, she says, saved her life.
When her first recurrence of pancreatic cancer appeared, James Metz, MD, chair of Radiation Oncology, chose to treat Kim's cancer with proton therapy. Protons can be applied to a very focused treatment area, which shortens the treatment time and lowers the chance of re-treating more of the body than is necessary. This was helpful for Kim, whose cancer came back in the same place as before.
"The body remembers each radiation treatment you have," says Erin Davis, CRNP, MSN, lead nurse practitioner in Radiation Oncology at Penn Medicine's Abramson Cancer Center. "You can have what's called 'toxicities of treatment,' meaning you can develop side effects down the road from your treatment."
Then in 2019, Kim was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. It wasn't far from where her previous cancer had been treated.
"I was not operable, but they did chemotherapy and radiation again," says Kim. "That was a pretty brutal few months, I must admit. Looking back, it's like, 'Oh, no. Not again.'"
For her esophageal cancer, Kim was treated with the Varian Halcyon, an innovative radiation oncology treatment that can shorten therapy times by as much as 50 percent. This was a perfect option for Kim, as her esophageal cancer appeared so close to her original pancreatic cancers. Halcyon can also be moved and repositioned during treatment, which helps better treat moving tissue — such as an esophagus.
Penn Medicine conducts clinical trials, such as the one Kim participated in, and invests in technology, such as Halcyon, because patients' survival and quality of life can depend on having more than one option for cancer treatment.
"It's really important work for many reasons, but a big one is for patients to know that there's potentially another option for them," says Erin. "And it's for providers who have to refer patients, too: 'Oh, gosh, there's another option for us here.'"
Supporting Radiation Therapy Patients Like Herself
As someone who "has seen it all" at Penn, Kim feels like she's in a unique position to provide support and guidance to other cancer patients.
Kim has volunteered to speak with patients in waiting rooms to make them feel at ease. She trained her "granddog" to be the first radiation oncology therapy dog.
As if that were not enough, Kim's involved in the Radiation Oncology Patient Alumni Group, which is dedicated to improving the Penn patient experience. She acts as a patient ambassador through the group's Virtual Visitor Program, in which she is paired with a newly diagnosed patient so she can mentor them and support them, virtually, through radiation therapy treatment.
She does this volunteer work not simply because of her gratitude to Dr. Metz, Dr. Teitelbaum, Erin Davis and dozens of other providers for taking care of her. It's because she knows how easy it is to be scared, or even just uneasy, about every appointment. She's been there. She wants to comfort patients as much as she can. As she knows, comfort is in short supply these days. With that in mind, Kim had one more thought for patients who may be visiting Penn Medicine soon:
"I have been a patient for 10 years now, so I am familiar and somewhat comfortable, as much as a cancer patient can be, at the cancer center. After my recent visit, I would tell anyone that it is far safer going into the cancer center than it is to go to the supermarket."