What You Should Know About Radiation Oncology: A Podcast with Anish Butala, Emily Martin and Evie Kalmar

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GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast 49 min 2 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 9 hours ago
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Why is radiation oncology important for palliative care providers?

Eric Widera 0:00
This episode of the JerryPal Podcast is CME eligible.
Alex Smith 0:04
To claim credit, please go to the CME tab on jerrypal.org.
Eric Widera 0:09
Welcome to the JerryPal Podcast. This is Eric Quadera.
Alex Smith 0:12
This is Alex Smith. And Alex, who do we have with us today? We are delighted to welcome Anish Butala, who is a radiation oncologist at the University of Pennsylvania. Anish, welcome to the JerryPal podcast. Thanks so much for
Anish Butala 0:25
having me.
Alex Smith 0:25
And we're delighted to welcome Emily Martin, who is a palliative care doc at UCLA. Emily, welcome to JerryPal.
Emily Martin 0:32
It's good to be here.
Alex Smith 0:33
And delight to welcome Evie Kelmar, who's a geriatrician and palliative care doc at UCSF. Evie, welcome to JerryPal.
Eric Widera 0:41
Thank you. So on this podcast, we're gonna be talking about what every healthcare provider should know about radiation oncology. But before we do, we always start off with a song request. Anish, do you have the song request for Alex?
Anish Butala 0:54
I do. My song request for Alex is I Ain't Worried by One Republican.
Eric Widera 0:59
Why did you choose this song?
Anish Butala 1:02
Well I speak, you know, from a physician lens of of some of the patients that I get referred. And by the time there's I'm sort of seeing them in clinic for consideration of palliative palliative radiation, they have a lot going on. You know, it's the symptomatic lesion that I'm sort of discussing with them, but many other things in their lives as it relates to their advanced cancers. And so We take on the mantra of one day at a time. And I thought this song fit that sort of mantra really well of I ain't worried about s everything right now. We're just gonna focus on, you know, what we're gonna discuss. And so I thought this uh this song fit that well.
Eric Widera 1:38
Great.
Alex Smith 1:52
I don't know what you've been told. But time is running out, no need to take it slow. I'm steppin' to you to toe. I should be scared, honey, maybe so I worry about it right now Keeping dreams alive, 1999 heroes. I worry about it right now Swimming in the floods, dancing on the clouds below.
Eric Widera 2:19
Excellent. Thank you, Alex.
Alex Smith 2:20
That was fun. Anything where I get to whistle is a great song choice, future guests. I love whistling.
Eric Widera 2:26
That's
Alex Smith 2:27
a lot of fun.
Eric Widera 2:28
Uh I can't whistle on command. I it just blows air if I even think about whistling on command. So well done, Alex. Evie, I'm gonna turn to you for the first question. You were the the person that instigated this podcast. You wanna do a podcast on radiation oncology and radiation therapy. Why why?
Evie Kalmar 2:46
Yeah, great question, Eric. You know, this is something I've been grappling with a lot. I as a palliative care doctor see patients who often get refrigerated in oncology from their oncologist and kind of come back and get told this is a good option, this is not a good option, this is what it would involve. And there was one particular patient that I had a couple months ago who had squamous cell carcinoma of the base of his tongue. He unfortunately the disease was progressing. He was having more pain, more dysphesia, and radiation was offered. It was offered, I think, daily for multiple weeks. And just as I was kind of getting to know him and Work with him to think about what would make most sense. I was just really curious, you know, what would radiation do for him?
Evie Kalmar 3:29
It was a huge amount of time. A lot going on. And so I just wanted to learn more, make sure that as a palliative care doctor, I knew what I needed to know to be able to support this patient and other patients and really considering the risks and benefits of radiation.
Eric Widera 3:45
Yeah. I gotta say, also as a geriatrician, like I see a lot of people who've had radiation therapy and like uh maybe a couple of years later, maybe they have some, you know, stranger symptoms, lit may is it late toxicity, like dysphagia symptoms, especially in people with head and neck cancer. And like thinking that through, it's it's so common, but we don't get taught a lot about it all. An issue. Can I ask you why you went into radiation oncology?
Anish Butala 4:13
Yeah. So it it's a good question. Thank you. I I was really fascinated not only with the medical side of things, but some of the the physics and mathematics that went into radiation therapy planning.

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