A Career High That Wasn’t on My Vision Board
When my husband and I co-founded Pink Fund in 2006, I created a vision board, something I still update today. It holds my professional hopes for Pink Fund and a few personal dreams, like one day becoming a stand-up comic in retirement, think Jean Smart in Hacks.
Some of those visions have come true. Others, I’m still waiting on. But speaking at the largest global cancer conference? That was nowhere in sight. Not even on the edge of my peripheral vision.
So when I received an email last October from Cardinale Smith, MD, PhD, Chair of the Annual Meeting Education Program Committee for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), inviting me to speak in person as a faculty member on a panel about financial toxicity in breast cancer care, I was floored.
The panel featured global experts...Alexandru Eniu, medical oncologist and Chief Physician at Hopital Riviera-Chablais, Renaz, Switzerland, Fumiko Chino, cancer researcher and Assistant Professor in Breast Radiation Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Christopher Booth, Professor of Oncology and Public Health Sciences, and Director of the Division of Cancer Care and Epidemiology at Queen’s University and Kingston Health Sciences Centre, Canada
And then there was me.
Me? Why me? Who recommended me? I asked, but I never got an answer.
But then I thought: Why not me?
I’ve devoted the past 20 years of my life to tackling the challenge of financial toxicity for breast cancer patients.
And while I don’t hold a PhD, MD, or MPH, apart from a BA in Journalism from the University of
Michigan, I’ve earned another credential with distinction: the L.E.E. degree...Lived Experience Expert.
My role on the panel was to share the patient voice, not just my own, but the voices of thousands of individuals Pink Fund has supported over the past 19 years.
That includes participants in two acclaimed academic studies we’ve been part of: one examining how gaps in provider communication increase financial burden, and another focused on screening preferences for financial toxicity. The takeaway? Screen early, screen often, and screen everyone. Never assume, based on how a patient presents, that they’re immune to financial hardship — the kind that leads to skipped treatments, job loss, bankruptcy, or even premature death when patients are forced to stop treatment just to keep the lights on.
As I listened to the three speakers before me, I felt a wave of doubt. How can I possibly follow this? Their data mirrored so much of what we’ve experienced on the ground. But I didn’t have charts. I didn’t have graphs.
Then I reminded myself: That’s not why you were invited. You’re here to tell the story. The lived experience. The reality.
When I stepped up to the podium, I found my rhythm. And I suppose I did okay. Ana Antune, Global Head of Operations at Further Group in Spain, wrote this on LinkedIn:
“Molly MacDonald of Pink Fund told us her story at ASCO with amazing energy and reality, and couldn’t leave anyone indifferent!”
And that’s the goal.
As patient advocates, we speak truth so that others may listen, and act. So that the lived experience shapes future care. So that no one leaves indifferent.