Living Well Through Cancer: The Power of Palliative Care

Katie Patterson's road to her current position was rather circuitous as she never thought she would be a nurse, but she always had an interest in health care as her dad was a doctor and her aunt and grandma are both nurses. Initially, she thought she would follow in her dad’s footsteps and become a doctor, but she took organic chemistry during her freshman year at the University of Michigan and decided that was not the path for her, so she ended up getting a Bachelor of Arts degree in cultural anthropology through which she was able to explore concepts of cultural construction of illness, which lead to her getting a Master of Public Health degree in Health Behavior and Health Education. It was during her time in public health school that she found her interest in health education as a means to improve health care by empowering patients to be an active participant in their health care team. As she felt that her effectiveness as a health educator would be best if she had a clinical background, she decided to complete an accelerated second career nursing degree and then a Master of Science in Community Health Nursing. Despite not having any formal oncology training nor a specific interest in oncology, her first job out of nursing school was as a bedside nurse caring for bone marrow transplant patients. It was through that job that she saw the role a nurse could play in helping patients navigate one of the most challenging experiences they would ever face and piqued her interest in providing patients with optimal symptom management.

Since then, she has spent the past 21 years providing comprehensive care for oncology patients at the University of Michigan Cancer Center, and, for the past 13 years, she has dedicated her practice exclusively to palliative care in oncology where she focuses on complex symptom management, goals of care, and quality of life enhancement for people who are faced with a cancer diagnosis. In addition to her clinical responsibilities, she is also a member of several University of Michigan committees about pain management and practices and opioid stewardship.

A resource recommended by Katie: https://getpalliativecare.org/handouts-for-patients-and-families/