Only the First Chapter: Reframing Cancer Survivorship
Expert Perspectives · Keira Smith · 2026-06-05
National Cancer Survivors Day is more than a celebratory marker—it’s a clinical reminder that survivorship is a long arc of needs that begins at diagnosis and extends for life. In this conversation, Dr. Jasmin Hundal, Hematology/Oncology Fellow at the Cleveland Clinic, and Dr. Lauren Ghazal, Assistant Professor of Nursing at the University of Rochester and a young adult cancer survivor, underscore that survivorship care is not an afterthought to treatment, but a core responsibility of oncology teams.
Reframing Survivorship
Dr. Ghazal grounds the discussion in a definition many clinicians know but don’t always operationalize: survivorship is “from the point of diagnosis until the end of one's life.” She emphasizes that “survivorship is not simply about being done with treatment, but involves post-treatment living, adapting, finding your new normal, and rebuilding your life after cancer.” For clinicians, this framing matters because it shifts survivorship from a discharge timepoint to a continuous model of care—especially for patients on long-term therapy, surveillance, or watch-and-wait pathways.
Additionally, National Cancer Survivors Day spotlights community and the labor that can be hard to see in routine follow-up visits: “It's a reminder of the resilience and the strength that patients with cancer and their families have to face every day,” Dr. Ghazal explains. “It brings visibility to the often invisible work of being a cancer survivor.”
What Persists After Treatment
A recurring clinical surprise for patients, Dr. Ghazal notes, is that “some of the hardest challenges can emerge after treatment end.” She points to long-term and late effects across domains that are often tracked unevenly: long-term physical effects, mental health effects, fear of cancer recurrence, financial hardship, financial toxicity, and disruptions in employment or education. For adolescent and young adult (AYA) survivors, she highlights the developmental whiplash of survivorship: “the population of AYA survivors, in the formative life stage of 15 to 39, faces unique developmental disruptions.”
Dr. Hundal echoes how easily care narrows to disease control, even with the best intentions: patients face financial hardship, time toxicity, and other barriers posed by social determinants of health, which can worsen during active treatment and persist long after. System-level transitions also remain a pressure point. As survivorship grows, care must move beyond oncology-only settings: survivors have to be transitioned back to primary care, raising practical challenges in communicating treatment plans and follow-up.
Building Multidisciplinary Survivorship
Dr. Hundal offers a concrete structural aspiration: “I wish we had tumor board not only for our newly diagnosed patients, but for our ongoing patients and survivors, where we could discuss their timeline, what do we need to do, and how can we help them navigate through this journey.” Dr. Ghazal names key partners, social workers and psycho-oncologists, whose involvement in the survivorship infrastructure could be embedded early, not appended later.
Correcting Misconceptions
Both clinicians and patients can unintentionally reinforce the harmful narrative that survivorship means closure. Dr. Ghazal calls out the misconception “that survivorship begins only after treatment ends” and that life simply resets. Instead, she names an emotionally accurate truth that can guide trauma-informed follow-up: “it's possible to hold many things at the same time: these truths that you're so grateful for surviving cancer, but you are also deeply impacted.”
National Cancer Survivors Day Messages
Ultimately, National Cancer Survivors Day serves as a vital call to action for the oncology community to see the patient behind the pathology. As Dr. Ghazal and Dr. Hundal illustrate, the clinical success of achieving remission is only the first chapter in a complex, lifelong narrative of adaptation. For clinicians, this means moving toward a model where psychosocial support, financial counseling, and primary care transitions are as standardized as the treatment itself. By recognizing that "healing around being a cancer survivor is not only the physical health," oncology teams can better empower their patients to navigate their "new normal" with the comprehensive support and visibility they deserve.
Key Takeaways
Treat survivorship as continuous care, from the point of diagnosis until the end of life.
Normalize post-treatment complexity: fear of recurrence, mental health needs, financial toxicity, and social disruption often intensify after therapy ends.
Build multidisciplinary pathways early, including social work and psycho-oncology.
Strengthen transitions to primary care with clear communication, follow-up plans, and mental health referral pathways.
Avoid “gratitude-only” messaging; make space for patients to be grateful and impacted simultaneously.
About the Speakers
Jasmin Hundal, MD, MS, MPH, is a second-year Hematology/Oncology Fellow at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. Previously, she completed her Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Hundal’s main area of interest is the overlap between cardiometabolic health and cancer, particularly for breast cancer patients and survivors. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling, cooking, and hiking.
Lauren Ghazal, PhD, FNP-BC, is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing and an Associate Member in Cancer Prevention and Control at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York. Her research focuses on nursing work-related challenges and financial toxicity experienced by adolescent and young adult cancer survivors, incorporating economic, clinical, and personal experiences to address survivorship disparities.