Mar 7
First Lady Meets with NEOMED Grad to Discuss Cancer Screening During Pandemic
First Lady Jill Biden, Ph.D., recently traveled to San Antonio, Texas to speak with patients and physicians about health disparities that exist for Hispanic and Latinx patients who need cancer screening and care.
The Hill reported that one physician who visited with the First Lady that day was College of Medicine alumnus Ramon Cancino, M.D. (’09), M.B.A., M.S., FAAFP, (right), who is co-chair of the Cancer Prevention and Screening Committee at UT Health San Antonio Mays Cancer Center as well as director of UT Health San Antonio Primary Care Center and senior medical director of medical management.
After the visit, Dr. Cancino explained, “As chair I was tasked to develop an integrated program for cancer prevention and screening across our UT Health San Antonio System and co-lead a committee, which included every medical specialty involved with screening – radiology, gynecology, pulmonary, GI, urology, etc. – all with a focus on the health equity issues affecting our community.”
First Lady Jill Biden, Ph.D., (left) with alumnus Ramon Cancino, M.D. (’09), M.B.A., M.S., FAAFP (center).
The Hill article noted, “The Biden administration, along with the first lady, [sic] have advocated for jumpstarting cancer screenings that were missed or delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure that tools to detect and treat cancer are readily available to all communities.”
Dr. Cancino said that he had been invited to speak with Dr. Biden to describe the work being done at UT. Here’s what he told the First Lady, in his words:
During the pandemic, we knew there was a risk patients would delay cancer screening because of fear of contracting COVID-19. Our committee approached our colleagues with this concern and they responded. As an institution, UT Health San Antonio increased efforts to increase access for patients who needed cancer screening or had missed scheduled screenings.
Here’s what we did when the COVID-19 pandemic hit:
- Physicians took to television, radio and social media campaigns to spread the importance of cancer screening to patients. We partnered with groups including our affiliated University Health System and the American Cancer Society in this work.
- As director of the Primary Care Center, I worked with our team to ensure that our primary care locations maintained convenient access for patients and leveraged telemedicine (specifically, video visits and telephone visits) so that our patients could continue to see our physicians and receive chronic disease management and cancer education and screening, even at the height of the pandemic. Telephone visits were key to us providing care during the pandemic, especially for established patients without the ability to connect to the internet for visits with us.
- As a patient-centered medical home, our practice continued to use its team-based approach and to work closely with nurse care managers and community health workers to ensure that patients did not fall through the cracks.
For the discussion with Dr. Biden, I brought along one of our community health workers, along with a patient who was found to have breast cancer via a screening mammogram (ordered by her PCP at one of our locations during a telemedicine appointment). This patient was currently being treated for cancer at our Mays Cancer Center.
Dr. Biden brought San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Dr. Ned Sharpless (director of the National Cancer Institute) with her to our meeting, which was quite exciting, too. We explained that our work impacts a patient population (Hispanic/Latinx) that is typically marginalized and with multiple health equity issues and social determinants of health issues. Our committee is quite unique in its structure, and it was key to an intentional effort to increase cancer screening across our entire academic practice.
By meeting with Dr. Biden, we were able to bring attention to the importance of maintaining a connection to a primary care physician.
Read the Hill article
Photos courtesy of UT Health San Antonio
