University of Colorado Anschutz Katy O. and Paul M. Rady Esophageal and Gastric Center of Excellence The center’s eponymous donors gave $20 million to, in part, establish an innovation fund, which founding chair Sachin Wani, a professor of gastroenterology and hepatology at CU Anschutz, will use to fund research grants.
The results, again, have been mostly predictable. For instance, Jessica McDermott, deputy associate director of diversity and inclusion in clinical research at the CU Cancer Center, found that Hispanics make up 10 percent of the head and neck cancer diagnoses in Colorado each year but only five to eight percent of such patients served annually by the CU Cancer Center.
Virginia Borges, the founder and director of the Young Women’s Breast Cancer Translational Program and Clinic at the CU Cancer Center, organized interviews with people of color, Spanish speakers, and rural residents to create better educational materials about young women’s cancer.
However, Tejas Patil, who specializes in hematology and thoracic oncology at UCHealth Lung Cancer Clinic and is looking into disparities in lung cancer treatments, admits the research “is going to raise more questions than answers. The solution is going to take multiple stakeholders deciding who deserves access to care.”