CANCER: KEYS TO SURVIVORSHIP
W ORKI NG I T O UT : YOU R E M PLOYM E NT R IG HTS
AS A
C ANC E R S U RVIVOR
Working It Out: Your Employment Rights as a Cancer Survivor
Rebecca Gregory: Good morning. On behalf of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivors and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I’d like to welcome you today to today’s Cancer: Keys to Survivorship program. This morning’s program is titled, “Working It Out: Your Employment Rights as a Cancer Survivor.” We have a wonderful program planned for you. Our guest speakers and panelists include experts in employment law as well as cancer survivors who will discuss from the legal and personal perspective some of the issues cancer survivors face in the workplace, and whether you are a survivor, a family member or friend, a caregiver or a health care professional, we hope that you’ll leave today’s program with the information and the skills that you may need should your loved one face an employment difficulty or discrimination in the workplace due to a cancer diagnosis. I’d like to give you some background on the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship or NCCS. NCCS represents the nearly nine million cancer survivors in this country. By definition a cancer survivor is someone with a history of cancer, from the time of diagnosis through the balance of life whether that be for days or decades. It’s our vision that if you or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer that you’ll have access to the best care available. It’s also our vision that you will have access to the resources that you may need to deal with your needs, cope with your needs, and the needs of your family whether those needs are spiritual, emotion, financial, or medical. And also a national advocacy organization located in the Washington, DC, area. We also spend a lot of time making sure that the voices of cancer survivors are heard by our government lawmakers and leaders. The Cancer: Keys to Survivorship program is really the result of a wonderful collaboration between NCCS and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Developed about five years ago, this program was created by survivors, patient advocates, and health care professionals. And it was created to address the issues that cancer survivors wanted to discuss as we were told by cancer survivors themselves. Since it was developed five years ago it’s undergone a great deal of reevaluation and retooling based on feedback from participants like yourself, and as a result we now have four modules to the program. We have a module on communication, a module on self-empowerment, a module on insurance, and a module on employment which will be presented today. We’re very pleased that we can tape today’s program and offer as a webcast over the Internet so that we can reach a greater audience than what we can fit in the auditorium today. That webcast will be available in mid-February via the NCCS website and The Leukemia & Lymphoma website and also CancerEducation.com. In addition to working with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, NCCS also provides other programs and resources to cancer survivors and their families. For example, we create a number of publications on insur-
LLS 03-03 G1 Cancer Keys 6/03
CANCER: KEYS TO SURVIVORSHIP
W ORKI NG I T O UT : YOU R E M PLOYM E NT R IG HTS
AS A
C ANC E R S U RVIVOR
Working It Out: Your Employment Rights as a Cancer Survivor
Rebecca Gregory:
(cont.)
ance and employment issues and also on a survivor’s right to be hopeful. And in fact, it’s these publications that form the core curriculum of the Cancer: Keys to Survivorship program. And we’ve placed many of those publications and resources on the tables outside the auditorium here. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to look at them. If not, after the program you’ll have an opportunity to check those out. As with all our programs, we hope that you’ll find today’s program to be useful, to be inspiring, and to be educational. You all received folders when you came into the auditorium this morning. I’d just like to draw your attention for a quick moment to what’s inside those folders. On the right-hand side we do have one of the NCCS publications in addition to some of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society publications. We hope that you’ll find these resources to be useful. We also have the presentation slides on the left-hand side for today’s program. The yellow sheet is an evaluation program, and we truly hope that you’ll take some time before you leave to fill that evaluation form out. It really does help us create a better program and really plan for future events. We would appreciate your feedback. Before I move on, I would like to recognize Ortho Biotech for making today’s event possible and also for the ongoing generosity in support of the Cancer: Keys to Survivorship program. Also on behalf of NCCS I would like to thank to the Great Delaware Valley division of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for helping us plan today’s events. Before I leave the podium, just a few housekeeping notes. We ask that you abide by the rules and prohibit any food or drink in the auditorium, so we don’t ruin these wonderful facilities. And also I just want to, in case you haven’t noticed where the restrooms are, they are located if you exit the auditorium and go to left and downstairs to the first floor there’s both a men’s and a ladies' room. I’d like to now introduce and provide the podium to Robin Kornhaber, who is the Senior Vice President of Patient Services for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Robin. Thank you, Rebecca. Good morning. It really is a privilege to be here with you this morning as we learn about our rights, working, on rights in our employment as cancer survivors. Over the past five years the Cancer: Keys to Survivorship program has touched the lives of 9,000 patients and empowered them to become a partner in their own care and advocate for themselves throughout their cancer experience. As Rebecca has indicated, it was only with the generous of Ortho Biotech that this program became a reality and continues to serve patients in an ongoing way. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society wants to provide critical information and support to all patients, families, and caregivers. We believe this can make a difference in your lives. At a time of great stress and vulnerability you need access to information, information on your disease and how
Robin Kornhaber:
LLS 03-03 G1 Cancer Keys 6/03
CANCER: KEYS TO SURVIVORSHIP
W ORKI NG I T O UT : YOU R E M PLOYM E NT R IG HTS
AS A
C ANC E R S U RVIVOR
Working It Out: Your Employment Rights as a Cancer Survivor
Robin Kornhaber:
(cont.)
it will impact your life. We want to empower you to make the best choices, choices that will lead to positive outcomes. Our challenge is great. The Society has a goal to reach all people we are here to serve and to do so early in their illness. We want to be able to provide the information that patients need most: treatment options, asking the right questions, balancing quality of life with treatment outcomes. Cancer: Keys to Survivorship is provided annual nationwide through the efforts of NCCS, our fantastic partners, and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society chapter staff. The Society has 59 chapters nationwide and provides a broad array of services to patients. I would like to thank the staff of the Greater Delaware Valley division of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society for the special efforts in the development of today’s program. Through our five years of implementing Cancer: Keys, we have learned that patients find this information most useful if it is provided close to the time of diagnosis. As a result, we’ve arranged through a grant from Ortho Biotech to have today’s segment videotaped and placed on the websites of our organizations and also our vendor CancerEducation.com for 12 months beginning February 11th [2002]. New patients can then access the information at any time or come back for a refresher if they choose. In order for us to air the webcast we would appreciate it if you would give us your consent to use any film or audio that you have, that we would take of today’s program, and you should have done that when you registered. If not, see one of the staff afterwards. It’s now my pleasure to introduce Carson Jacobi, who’s the National Director of Patient Services at The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She will be moderating today’s program. Carson.
LLS 03-03 G1 Cancer Keys 6/03