Articles

Humour: an essential tool in cancer care and communication

 “I don’t know what I’ll find in there. It could be cancer. In the best case, you’ll be stuck with a bag for the rest of your life.” Those are the words…

Articles

Prevention messages: negotiating the tricky interface between medicine and popular culture

“Cigarettes are shit.” The slogan is neither creative nor informative, yet it had an impact beyond all expectations in Poland in 1994. These were the early days of post-communism: tobacco companies were…

Articles

Untreated malnutrition is rife among cancer patients: here’s how we can do better

In the mid-1970s, the US medical community was shocked by an article published in Nutrition Today under the title ‘The Skeleton in the Hospital Closet’. "I suspect that one of the largest…

Articles

How do I respond? Advice for friends and family on supporting someone through cancer

A few days after being diagnosed with cancer, at only 32 years of age, Katarzyna Chmielewska-Wojciechowska met a friend who asked, in passing, how she was doing. She told him. His response…

Articles

The oncologist-patients who share their unique insights 

“I try not to think about it. However, a few times a day, I have moments of a few seconds when I feel like panic is taking over me. After a while…