providers.nort...
Hello, my name is Jason Meier. I am a physician with Norton Cancer Institute. I treat cancer, I treat diseases of the blood as well. I do this because I find it very rewarding to help people through a hard time in their life, I provide options, and we work together with patients to make a plan that works for them and that will provide the best benefits possible.
In recent years, what we've seen is that diseases and cancers that were life-threatening and that had survivals of less than six months from diagnosis, now have survival terms in terms of years. And one of those is small cell lung cancer. With diagnosis, even five years ago, the average life expectancy was less than six months. Now, with immune therapies, with chemotherapies, with treatment, we can see survivals that patients are still alive, two, three, sometimes five or 10 years later. And this is an amazing progress that we've made in cancer over the last few years.
So, my idea of how a patient visit should work, especially that first patient visit, is that I need to make sure that we are all on the same page. And so, I want to make sure that you have all of the pathology, the diagnostic information that we have at this time, and that may include a conversation about additional tests that we need to do to make sure that your cancer is treated individually, because that's the buzzword nowadays. And that's the key to cancer in 2024, is that we need to be able to know how exactly to treat your cancer, not just a broad category of things like lung cancer. Lung cancer right now, if you look at the diagnostic and the treatment pathways for that disease, could be broken up into 24 to 30 different diseases, and treating you based on your type of lung cancer is going to give you the outcome with the fewest side effects and that's most effective.
So an important component of that first visit is going to be me discussing with you what we have diagnosed and whether or not it's been fully diagnosed. Do we need to do additional tests to figure out how best to treat your disease? And if so, what do those tests involve? Is there anything that you need to do? And usually there's not. It's just labs I need to order with a pathologist to make sure we understand how your disease is going to behave and how it needs to be treated.
I'm from Louisville. I'm actually trained in Indiana at the IU in Indianapolis, and I also trained at Vanderbilt in Nashville. Most recently, I've been practicing out in Cookeville, Tennessee, and I'm moving back to Louisville to be closer to family and to support my cards and to also be closer to the people that I love and to care for the people of this area.
So for fun, I take care of my three dogs, I play with my boys, and they're very interested in soccer and track and field. For me, you can tell that I'm not. I also am a strong supporter of my Louisville Cardinals. I'm a very big fan of basketball and football. So you may see me at the games.
13 авг 2024
