The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Assistant Professor Assistant Residency Program Director Director the Metastatic Disease Program, Department of Radiation Oncology Radiotherapy Division Lead for the UNC Project Malawi Cancer Program
Conquer Cancer – The ASCO Foundation
Improving cancer care for patients located in resource-limited settings.
Breast cancer is a leading cause of cancer death for women in Malawi. Most women have advanced disease when they are first seen in an oncology clinic and need multidisciplinary team care. While this type of care is available at Kamuzu Center Hospital, the largest public oncology hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi, patient follow-up rates are low. Quality of care is improved through the implementation of a secure electronic medical record system, which are lacking in Malawi and other resource-limited settings. This has been made worse by COVID social-distancing and a lack of electronic tools to transition to virtual care.
Dr. Elmore’s Conquer Cancer research, supported by BCRF, seeks to adapt a novel smartphone-based breast cancer patient management application to improve multidisciplinary breast cancer care in Malawi. She and her team will use this application in a quality care improvement program led by a nurse navigator at Kamuzu Central Hospital/UNC Project Malawi. She hopes that this application will improve patient outcomes for patients in Malawi and possibly other low resource settings, by improving participation of multidisciplinary clinical care teams, which are critical to continuing care in the post-COVID era.
Shekinah Elmore, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor, Assistant Residency Program Director, and Director the Metastatic Disease Program in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Radiotherapy Division Lead for the UNC Project Malawi Cancer Program. She is dedicated to pursuing equity and empathy in oncology care through research, education, and practice. She is a cancer survivor with experience treading the line between patient and provider and has spoken about this at TEDMED 2020 and written in Elemental, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the New England Journal of Medicine, focusing on themes of embracing compassionate care and coping with uncertainty. She earned her master’s in public health from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and worked for the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs in sub-Saharan Africa prior to medical school. During her time at Harvard Medical School, she received a Fulbright grant to work with Partners in Health in Rwanda to explore the patient experience of cancer care. While completing the Harvard Radiation Oncology Residency Program, she focused on improving radiotherapy access in resource-limited settings and promoting pathways for resident involvement in improving global radiotherapy. She has published on these themes in the Journal of Global Oncology and the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, and Physics. Her current research program focuses on broadening access to and improving the experience of cancer care for marginalized patients in both North Carolina and Malawi.
2023
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