{"id":65623,"date":"2022-05-03T07:52:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-03T11:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=65623"},"modified":"2022-05-05T11:45:06","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T15:45:06","slug":"battling-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/battling-cancer\/","title":{"rendered":"Battling Cancer: The Social Aspects to Consider"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Can cancer be a social issue? What are the social implications of treating cancer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Siddhartha Mukherjee, the author of The Emperor of All Maladies<\/em>, battling cancer isn\u2019t just an interesting puzzle to solve\u2014it is about helping people. We mustn\u2019t focus so much on the disease that we lose sight of the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read about the social aspects of fighting cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Considering the Person, Not Just the Disease<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the 1950s, an English physician named Cecily Saunders introduced the idea of palliative medicine <\/em>to cancer treatment: end-of-life care<\/a> designed to preserve comfort and dignity, rather than cure the disease at any cost. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mukherjee says that, despite its name, palliative medicine was more of a social advancement than a medical one. Many doctors had refused to even consider palliative care because it felt like admitting defeat; furthermore, many people fought for the slightest chance that their loved ones could be healed, no matter the cost or the impact on the patient. However, Saunders argued that subjecting patients to painful and nauseating treatments with little hope of curing them did more harm than good<\/strong>\u2014that there came a time when doctors and loved ones should let the patient stop suffering<\/a> and die peacefully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saunders opened the world\u2019s first modern hospice center in England in 1967. In 1974, the first American hospice opened at Yale-New Haven Hospital. By the early 1980s, hospice centers based on Saunders\u2019s model could be found all over the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Social Aspects of the Fight Against Cancer<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mukherjee observes that battling cancer is as much a social matter as a medical one.<\/strong> Funding cancer research requires people to first acknowledge that cancer exists (an unpleasant topic that many prefer to ignore), and then recognize that doctors and researchers need vast amounts of funding and resources to combat it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, preventing <\/em>cancer often requires us to change our lifestyles and laws: For example, giving up alcohol (a personal change) and carefully regulating pesticides<\/a> (a legal change) both help reduce the risk of cancer. People are often reluctant to make the necessary changes, or even to believe that they are <\/em>necessary. Therefore, alongside the scientific and technological advances in cancer research, Mukherjee describes a series of social advances (and setbacks) that helped shape the fight against cancer<\/a> over the years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: In Creativity, Inc.<\/em><\/a>, Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace argue that people often resist change<\/a> because they\u2019re afraid to acknowledge that something\u2019s wrong in the first place. They offer three tips for alleviating that fear of change<\/a>: 1. Discuss why change is necessary. 2. Assess the current situation and its problems honestly<\/em>. 3. Embrace the fact that the change may not go smoothly at first, and accept that there will be mistakes.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can cancer be a social issue? What are the social implications of treating cancer? According to Siddhartha Mukherjee, the author of The Emperor of All Maladies, battling cancer isn\u2019t just an interesting puzzle to solve\u2014it is about helping people. We mustn\u2019t focus so much on the disease that we lose sight of the people. Read about the social aspects of fighting cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":15309,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,160,24],"tags":[611],"class_list":["post-65623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-science","category-society","tag-the-emperor-of-all-maladies","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nBattling Cancer: The Social Aspects to Consider - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Battling cancer isn\u2019t just an interesting puzzle to solve\u2014it is about helping people. 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