The Comprehensive Blood and Cancer Center haas about 300 employees.
We're one of the largest free standing cancer centers on the west coast in a private practice
setting.
We see a huge number of patients and the model is very unique.
What we believe is that the patients need to be take care of at a single site for all
cancer care.
Once they are diagnosed with cancer they have no reason to go anywhere else for anything.
I teach the patients the massage techniques and then I use other techniques like bandaging
and things like that to help them manage their condition.
It's a wonderful career but it's very emotional sometimes.
A lot of the patients we see are very, very sick from either the cancer itself, or the
treatment itself.
It's pretty stressful.
I mean I love what I do but it's still stressful.
The emotional challenges of working with patients that become like family to you and you love
them and you deal with issues of death and dying and it's hard not to shed a lot of tears.
I would love for you to think that everyday is just wonderful here, but they're not.
We have hard days.
Some days are very hard.
We lose patients we love.
Being a physician is very stressful.
There are a lot of casualties of that stress.
You see that in many different ways like depression, substance abuse...
I probably do 3 or 4 peoples work all by myself and deal with all of that stress.
I think that the only reason I can do it is not because of my own capabilities, I think
it's because of the strength and support that I can from doing the Transcendental Meditation
Programs and everything
else
that goes with it.