So I've been with Novartis for a few years, but I've been in the, in the cancer space for a number of years, and it's a, it's an area that's near and dear to me and, you know, we can talk a little bit more about the why behind it. but that's why I'm here, and I'm looking forward to the discussion. We're happy to have you. We're happy to have you, absolutely. Ready to kick things off, and Ms. Kerri Gobert, tell us a little bit about who you are. Introduce yourself. Good morning, everyb- everyone. I'm Kerri Gobert. It's, it's wonderful to share the stage with, our partner as well, with the American Cancer Society, Novartis, as well as, blackdoctor.org.

Black Doctor. Black Doctor now. Yep. Let me correct that. my name is Kerri Gobert. I'm the chief of staff of our research team at the Ameri at the American Cancer Society. I work with our chief scientific officer to set forth the priorities for our population science team, our cancer screening team, as well as many of you, may know that our team leads Cancer Facts & Figures, which is led by Amadeen Jamal, but I work with all of those teams to make sure that our priorities move forward. Great. Thank you. Thank you. So we're really excited to have you guys today. Let's jump right into everything.

when we talk about rewriting the narrative, which is the theme for today's panel, what narrative specifically needs to be writ- rewritten? We're talking prostate cancer. We're talking breast cancer. What is the narrative that needs to be rewritten?

What needs to be disrupted right now, and what do we need to change in terms of how we think about these conditions? Do you mind if I share this? Sure. I just feel There we go. Make sure everybody can see. There we go. Perfect. Yeah. Do you wanna kick things off, Rodney? Oh. Kerri, I'm happy to jump in. Sure. I'm g-- I can kick things off. I actually wrote a cou- couple of We love notes. We love notes. Jump right in. I'm gonna read from, from my notes. of course, if you-- many of you have seen Cancer Facts & Figures this year, and, survival, ac- in our community is actua is so damaging right now.

I mean, we're, we're at a global health crisis, honestly, within our communities. So the first thing that I thought about is accountability. We have to, our health systems, advocacy, access, those things that many of us, even Aki, you know, mentioned earlier, in the opening. But that is one thing that when you look at survival rates compared to other cultures am- across all cancers, as we look at the da-data, we're dying daily every second. And so the one thing that I wanna change the narrative, which I say to a lot of our scientists and epidemiologists as well, we have to come out of the lab.

We have to go into the community to share the research that we're doing. Again, our team has to take more accountability that when we're working on studies also, I always encourage that we can actually have patients or, and/or the community involved in our studies, to help people better understand as some of the other p-- panels will talk about clinical trials and things like that.

But if we are sitting behind our desk and sitting behind our screens, and me as well, not going into community to share the research that we're working on, then for me personally, not of the American Cancer Society, that's my NDA. This is Kerri speaking. but for me personally, if I'm not taking the research that I'm working on into the community daily or weekly or monthly, then I'm not doing what I need to do. I love that. What I wanna follow up with that on is, what is the response that you get from your colleagues when you say that? It sounds like you're committed to taking your research into the audien-- into the community, talking to people, like you said, weekly, daily, monthly.

That sounds like exactly what we need, but is everybody on board with that? Is that one of the things that we need to back up and work on with that from the other side? Absolutely. I don't always get an excited response. and to be very candid and honest, even in our, cohort stor- study, Voices of Black Women, w- we had a number of people that were not They didn't feel comfortable or they didn't know. I won't say they didn't feel comfortable. I would say that in certain-- going into our c-- my community, they didn't feel comfortable enough to articulate a conversation, which was quite strange to me because these, these are scientists- These are the experts.

Exactly. Yeah. So we need to also do some work and some training as well, and we have material that is training them how to talk to the community.

but you, you do, you get people that don't feel comfortable. But I also say to them, "You have to think about your impact in the world." Yeah. "And how do you see the world different? How do you really wanna make better at health outcomes?" It's about being, you know, r- doing your rigorous science, but it's also about touching the patient. I love that. That is exactly it. Well, hopefully, your colleagues will come on board with that. Rodney, let's pick up on that. From your perspective, is that where you see that the narrative needs to shift, that people need to come from behind research and come step into the community and bring, bring it actually there to the community.

But what would you say about disrupting the narrative, rewriting the narrative? Yeah. no, I think that's an important aspect. I tend to think a lot about, one, th-there's a conversation that exists today around awareness gaps in the Black community. There's a conversation that exists around sort of, ch-changes in behavior, and I think we all know there's a conversation that exists around trust. And so if you, you, you know, you wanna take that maybe a little deeper, one level below, you would actually say part of it is because people tend to think in the Black community that cancer care is hard.

It's hard, right? It's hard to navigate. It's hard to get access. It's hard to They tend to think of it being really expensive, right? So it's hard because maybe we don't have the resources to get the best quality care, and the only way you get the best quality care, the narrative is that we need to disrupt is in the big, large academic medical centers and the cancer centers that are around the country, and we need to change that narrative, right?

Because in reality, what we wanna do is start to bring more awareness locally, as Kerry talked about, into the community, and we need to make sure people understand it's not hard. But one of the things that I probably spend a lot of time on is saying we can't put all the onus on the Black community. The system needs to step up, right? The system needs to change. The system- Talk about that. Yeah. Yeah. The system needs to find a way to make sure that the Black community is getting diagn-diagnosed earlier, so early detection, because we all know, Kerry talked about it, right?

The earlier you're diagnosed with cancer, the better the outcomes. That's a fact, right? There's data that supports that. Early diagnosis, early detection, better outcomes, and unfortunately today we're getting diagnosed later, and that's part of the challenge. But if we put the onus on the system to start to bring these solutions into the local community a little bit earlier and more consistently as well across the board, I think what narrative we will change is the narrative that says cancer care is hard, cancer care is difficult to navigate, cancer care is inaccessible, and we will start to change that to one that says, "I can actually get the best cancer care here locally in the community because these are the people that I trust and I work with." And that- Yeah.

And I just wanna say one, one more thing is that, for us in the, the field of community engagement, we have to stop thinking of all of these special initiatives.

Our storytelling is this is standard care, and I think sometimes that we as clinicians or people in the field, we make all of these initiatives without And some people don't understand this is standard care. This is the care that our communities deserve. So I just wanna mention that. No, absolutely. So what we're talking about is really standardizing the care, taking it from the field that you have to be in a major metropolitan area next to a major cancer resource center, and that you are able to get access to the treatment you need in your local community. That would Yeah.

Yeah, because I, I, I would just add, I mean, look, at Novartis, we, we talk about bringing innovation, right? And we talk about innovation through science, and I u- I like to say, so what if you have innovation but you can't get it to the people, right? So we have to bring that innovation, that science, that new therapy that's out there to the local community to make sure everybody has access to it as well. Excellent. Now you bring me to another point, access to clinical trials, and clinical trials in general being one of the biggest gaps in equity. What will it take to move the needle?

I know on Black Doctor, we've got clinical trial resources. We reach out to partners to elevate and amplify clinical trials. But how are we getting them to the people to be included in them? How are we getting the doctors that are in-- caring about our community to actually take part and be a part of those clinical trials? What needs to happen with clinical trials?

I'm gonna look at you first, Kerry, and see what you have to say. So one thing w- that we're doing, at the American Cancer Society is we took a step back to look at infrastructure, within some of the clinical, community clinics to see what do actually they need. What-- First of all, what support do they need as far as, like, what equipment and all the other things? even p- do they need more patient navigators? What So that's the first thing that we did, and we work with, Trial Library also, and then the Prostate Cancer, Consortium as well. We work with them. So this was both breast cancer and prostate cancer.

This was specifically breast, prostate cancer. Prostate cancer. So but I think the system, again, is so broken. Again, it goes back to that accountability. first we need I, I feel like, personally, we need to actually be in the clinics, be, be a part of the trial myself. I currently, go through a trial with biomarker testing, so I'm able to share that, my experience, because I didn't know about clinical trials pri-prior to working with the American Cancer Society. And not that I was afraid of it, but I just, I didn't have the education to know.And is, and is that one of the gaps right there, that our community doesn't know?

We don't know. We're not a part of it because it sounds like almost to Rodney's point about cancer care in general, it sounds big. It sounds scary. We don't know how to approach it. So is that one of the big gaps, is the awareness of clinical trials, what's involved in it, how to become a part of one?

Rodney, would you say that? absolutely, and 'cause there's a lot of ands to that. There is. A lot of ands. And we have to take away that narrative of complexity and again, make it-- just simplify it for everybody, like clinical trials is for everyone, right? There's a narrative- Yes. -that people think clinical trials is specialized. It only goes to certain people. That's some of the narrative is just like, it's for everybody. I also think the Again, I'm gonna-- you're gonna hear me say this over and over. I think the onus is also, again, on the system, by the way. and, and, and by the way, a lot of us are a part of the system, so we can make changes.

the system needs to Like, I think about the criteria that's required to Or actually, I like to use the exclusion criteria. Interesting. Speak on that. Yeah, for clinical trials, because sometimes what happens with the exclusion criteria is you take people, a community completely out of the trial, even if they're aware of it, even if they have the disease. So let's just say, they say one of the exclusion criteria is, high blood pressure. We're not taking anybody with high blood pressure, and then you're coming into community maybe with high blood pressure or diabetes or something like that, and they are completely excluded from the clinical trial.

So I think we have to do a better job of finding ways to include people with underlying diseases and not exclude those people, so we can at least start to make them aware and also start to bring them in at the ground level in that space as well.

So I think exclusion criteria, and Carrie, you can probably talk more specifically to that, but it's a really an important point. No, that's an amazing point right there, because you think about it, if that is the exclusion criteria and you have so many people in the Black community that have high blood pressure or dia-diabetes, they're still gonna need the drugs and the research and the information, but if they're never part of the clinical trials and excluded, so that's an amazing point. And if they've never been told by their doctor or clinician that that, that that's an, an available point for-- as a next step.

How often are doctors sharing that with the patients? Is that one of the areas we could close the gap, too? If you're going to your doctor, how much of a practice is it for the physicians to be speaking to their patients and saying, "You know, you could look into a clinical trial. You might be eligible for a clinical trial." Is that a discussion that's happening in the doctor's office? I think it depends. I'm actually gonna give a real, real world example 'cause it literally just happened to me on, yeah, last Friday. So part of it goes back to what I was talking about, is bringing it to a local level.

So I had a local physician, a Black doctor, who was doing a prostate cancer clinical trial, and that's part of it, right? We need it local. So he's very focused on making sure I bring people of color into these trials. Okay. What he-- And this was specifically to Novartis.

What he said to me was, he has so many eligib-eligible patients, he needs more slots, right? And so where can I help him get more slots? And the more slots is all about getting more patients into these clinical trials, 'cause he had more patients sign up fast. And, that's not my space per se, but at least I could reach out to the people within Novartis and say, "Hey, we have a motivated, you know, person, that wants to enroll more patients at a faster time." And all I did was just facilitate a conversation, right? Put him in t-that person in touch. He was just trying to move through the system fast 'cause he could have done it himself, but he know how slow our system moves.

And he sent me a note on Monday and said, "Hey, I got a few more slots. Thank you." And it wasn't really me specifically. It was just me facilitating and, and re-- him reaching out first- Yeah. -and me facilitating. But again, it's because he's in a community. He wasn't at a big academic medical center. And I think that's, you know, the We need to get these trials into these local communities as well because guess what? We have doctors that patients trust. Yes. Right? Again, going back to the trust factor that you mentioned. Going back to the trust. It's all about the trust.

They trust them, and if they tell them that there's this clinical trial on prostate cancer, on breast cancer, or whatever it may be, they're more likely to enroll as well. Thank you. And I think the other point that you brought up within that is he was motivated.

We know so many physicians are limited by the time that they have to spend with the patient when they're meeting with them. They have to be motivated to be part of that clinical trial, to make that extra phone call. But you see what happened when you close that, that loop for that. Carrie, what-- can you speak on that? Like, how do we get the community level, not just the big level doctors, to really tap in, be interested, and, and reach out when they're looking to fill those slots and things? I mean, this sounds like the whole way that we need to approach making the changes in the system.

As you pointed out, Rodney, we're all part of that system. Is it just each one, teach one, as they say, and reaching out to the next person and bringing them in? I think we, we have to go a higher, higher level of, of just coming from, you know, ACR. Many of you may have been there. All the researchers ac-across the country. ASCO is coming up. again, me personally, I am advocating at the highest level that again, we gather in these large meetings. Yeah. We also have to bring those leaders. So going to like the NCI directors, going to, you know, working with, Ricky and, Dr.

Rob Winn to help us advocate and champion these type topics and being in the community at the highest level.So that, that's the only way that I think that we can actually make change, is that we start going to the NCI directors- Yeah our leaders. I mean, we certainly, at the American Cancer Society, sh-- our new CEO, Shane Jacobson, he is I'm always advocating and sending messages to both he and, Dr.

Bill Dahut. So I think that's the only way. And a-again, none of this happens in isolation, and we know that. That's why we are all gathered here today. but it's gonna take the collective of our organizations to really, to continue to amplify that and make it a call of action, that the community needs to be first. I love that. And we're in our, our last moment, and we're wrapping up. Rodney, I'm gonna ask you, what is the one immediate change that we could put into place? Is it policy, practice, community? Walking out of this room today, is there something that this collective can do, or is it taking it back to somebody in their organization?

What's the one thing that we could do? Actually, I'm gonna make it really simple. One action that I think we all can take is, we have to reach out within our own sort of circles and start to have conversations. And, I can't remember who said it last night. Someone was talking about at the reception about their, you know, their, their circle of top five people that they're around, et cetera. So you got these top five people you're around. Make sure you're having conversations. A quick ex- quick example, I'm literally at a New York Knicks game with one of my buddies, my wife, his wife, and I took that moment because I knew his wife was listening to say, "Have you gotten your PSA?" And he was like, "What?

What's a PSA?" It's like So we end up having that, and then now his wife is in on that conversation. I could have had that conversation- That was tricky.

I see what you did there. It was just because I need to put a little bit more pressure on my friends to make sure that they're doing at least the basics, at least the basics, right? And so I think we all, that's an action all of us can do, is have those conversations. For the men in here, ask your friends, you know, "Have you had your P..." You know, PSA is now for Black men at forty-five and above, right? Like, "Have you had your PSA?" and it's as simple as a blood test. That's all it is, as simple as a blood test. And another example, one of my buddies- Which not everyone knows.

Not as everyone knows. Is a couple things that stop people in their tracks on that, and they don't realize that- Exactly. As simple as a blood test. and this literally happened this weekend. Someone, one of my buddies just hit me with, "PSA, blah, blah, blah." That's all he hit in his text to me. And I was I lo-- Like, that's the conversation I'm having with my friends. Like, now they're getting their PSA test, and they're sending me their numbers. I don't want their numbers, but at least- At least I know they- Thank you for TMI. But they know what they're doing, what needs to be done, and that's So the action, if you didn't hear me, for men and for the women in here, make sure the men are getting their PSA every year.

Every year, not like once every five years, every single year. Your husband, your brother, your nephew- Yeah your son, whoever. That's right. Yes, and- And uncle. And uncle. One thing I wanna mention as well is please, let's start talking to our children and our young people about screening and early detection.

As many of you have heard, colorectal cancer is on the rise in younger adults, and that's our next generation, so. Absolutely. Thank you all very much. I'm gonna actually see if we could take a couple questions from the audience. If we've got any, I've got a mic here. There you go. Good morning. Good morning. Morning. Thank you very much for the information that you have provided. I actually took a quote from Ms. Kerry Goldberg. I hope I said that correctly. I have been a healthcare advocate, and provider and therapist and cook for my mom, who has been navigating with a lot of health issues, and there's a lot of prenotion or taboo about medical trials.

And it was so powerful when you said to be part of the trials. When you hear that from your medical professionals and say, "This is my story," it becomes real personal, and it's not, "This is arm's length happening to you. You should be doing this. I don't have to do this." So there's sort of a wall that comes with medical professionals. And in this experience of probably fourteen years of navigating with my mom, I have seen, especially in the when we have Black doctors, that there's more of that personal approach in the conversations. So I want to congratulate you and say thank you for sharing that because then the conversation becomes, "I am part of the community.

I'm in this journey with you, and I'm doing this because I truly care beyond this is my career. I'm in this path with you as well." So I don't have a question. I just really wanted to point that out.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Cleese Erickson, and I do a lot of health workforce research studies, including on clinical research coordinators. And, I wondered if you talked, have thought about or work with the society that represents them because they're very focused on diversifying that profession and creating career ladders as an avenue for addressing some of the trust and building connections-Is that something that you all are thinking about? I would actually say not specifically with that, organization. Novartis doesn't work with them, but happy to chat more about it.

But one thing I would say is we-- so I agree with your comment in terms of working with community sort of navigators who talk to patients. So we just kicked off a new initiative, our Integrated Health Accelerators, the IHAs, in five cities, across the US, and they're exactly that. They're going into, you know, the places like, New York and Detroit, Houston, et cetera, into those communities, working with local advocacy groups, where, again, goes back to the trust 'cause that's where the trust happens, and you can have those conversations at a local level and allows for them to really open up and engage in, in very real discussion, around specifically, cancer as well.

So I think it's a great place that we can go, and I'll Hopefully, we'll get some data that comes out of that and, we start to see. You know, at the end of the day, what we're trying to do is improve outcomes, and the thing that I always say is, "Your zip code should not determine how long you live." That's right.

Yeah. Period. That's right. Good morning. I have a question, and I'll give you the reason why I ask it second. My question is: What are the-- Do you know of studies or any data that helps us understand why we, as, people of color, enroll our children with cancer in terms of clinical trials at a much higher rate than the adults do for themselves? What is it about that that we don't understand? And I, I have my own theories. I'm a pediatric hemonc by training, so I'm just curious if you know of any data that kind of gives us a collective view versus just an anecdotal view that I have.

Yes. I don't-- I haven't studied any particular data around that. I would absolutely love the opportunity to follow up with you on that question, though, with some of our team, because I haven't specifically studied that. I have some theories, but I, I want to look at the data first before I respond, so. And, I was gonna say, I would love to hear your theory. Yes. And so- I mean, share, share your the-- It may, it may be similar to my theory as well, but I-- Well, I can give you two theories. One theory is that I know that, just being a pediatric physician, you know that you're going to have to talk to patients, meaning their parents.

And so that's part of I think there's a lot more emphasis on communication and dialogue because you have to get consent for the treatment, no matter whether it's pneumonia treatment, whether it's, you know, sickle cell treatment, whether it's cancer treatment. And so I think that's probably one factor that, you know, is kind of ingrained.

And also many of the places where children are treated for cancer, the teams are quite strong in terms of all the, ancillary services and personnel that you need to kind of keep reinforcing and supporting that family to bring their child back again and again and again. We have great, you know, clinical resource or research nurses and social workers and child therapists, all the things you can imagine. It's, you know-- And I'm thinking about the, the atmosphere in a children's hospital in particular, 'cause most children do get treated at tertiary care centers in this country.

Most do. So that's the other conundrum there, because they come into the big medical centers, because their physicians refer them, and then I think we have, maybe just done a little bit more work around that in terms of just supporting a family, and that may help them be able to feel comfortable over time. And even the language barriers, lots of translators, interpreters for all the languages you can imagine, and that is also another barrier that's kind of overcome. I think you're spot on right there. I, I really do. And also, we also do a lot for our children and then overlook some of the things in taking-- in terms of taking care of our own health.

Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you, Rodney and Kerry, for being on the panel. All right. Thank you.