Dr Joseph Alvarnas Previews Key Discussions in Oncology to Be Presented at PCOC 2020

Each Patient-Centered Oncology Care meeting provides dynamic, provoking conversations on the current and future landscape of oncology. This year's PCOC 2020 will work to continue this trend, said Joseph Alvarnas, MD, of the City of Hope and editor-in-chief of Evidence-Based Oncology™.

Transcript

AJMC®: What are the takeaways that you hope participants and audience members gain from PCOC 2020?

Dr Alvarnas: So, what I enjoy most about each PCOC meeting is the thing that I find unexpectedly. The sessions and dynamic conversations that you get between people stick in my brain. I can still think back 3 meetings ago when we had speakers like Kavita Patel and Scott Gottlieb having a deep conversation about what future health care could look like.

I remember our pathways conversation last year where our speakers were able to really define why these are valuable tools and why they become essential in the practice of oncology. I even think about Barbara McAneny’s conversation about how oncology needs to evolve to still remain personalized, to still remain something communal, and a key part of every community.

Those kinds of conversations and the unexpected emotional nature of how they're stated, how people react, and how we come out of these meetings empowered to move forward–it's that unexpected aspect of each and every year that always has me excited to go into the next year. I know it's going to be a great meeting. I know we're going to have great conversations. I know where speakers are going to provoke, stimulate, and energize–I just don't know how yet. How I leave this meeting thinking differently than when I went in is really exciting.