A Vision for Cancer Education and Access

Hello, my name is Phyllis Pitman.

I'm so glad to have the chance to share some information about our organization, CMedEd, a patient-centered digital health education platform. And I want to begin by sharing my brief history of CMedEd.

We've all been touched by cancer, either personally or in the lives of family or loved ones. In 2025, 1,600 Americans died every single day. Cancer isn't really on your radar until it hits, and then you want to know everything about it. When cancer happens to you or a loved one, there is an urgent need for clear, trustworthy information. Unfortunately, that information can be hard to come by and harder to understand.

This is a personal mission for me. My father retired at age 68 and was diagnosed with cancer just six months later. My mom was overwhelmed. My brother and sister and I did our best to understand what was happening, what to expect, how to make the right decisions as far as care, but too often it felt like we were navigating in the dark. I was deeply impacted by what our family went through. That experience made me realize how important it is to offer clarity and compassion to people when they need it the most.

From my experience with my dad, here's what I learned. Doctors' meetings are often brief with a lot of unanswered questions. We often had a hard time remembering what the doctor said. There were few resources available to help navigate the journey. I remember having to call the American Cancer Society on a telephone to ask questions, and even now, many families still log onto Google or an AI platform to learn more.

That's why I founded CMedEd. CMedEd is a digital one-stop shop for evidence-based educational content for more than 120 cancer types and chronic diseases, including diabetes, COPD, and others. Our platform and content is vetted and approved by over a hundred oncologists and experts from America's leading cancer institutions.

What makes CMedEd different is that we are patient first. All of our content is designed to educate patients in the simplest way possible. We explain complex medical terms in layman terms, plain, easy-to-understand language that is patient sensitive. Additionally, the CMedEd library contains more than 2,000 custom illustrations that are engaging and created to support learning and ease anxiety. We also have an interactive Click-and-Learn glossary of 600-plus medical-related terms, and we have a new video library with insights from experts and survivors. All of our content is also available in Spanish.

Our mission is to simplify, educate, and empower. We want to help patients and caregivers support informed decision making during diagnosis and treatment, primary care clinicians who play a crucial role in cancer care coordination, and community health educators seeking culturally competent and accessible education.

When someone is first diagnosed with cancer, the critical path refers to the essential steps from the initial diagnosis to the start of a treatment plan. Delays on this path can extend the overall timeline, and for some aggressive cancers potentially worsen the prognosis. The ability to educate and prepare the patient for the road ahead helps to mitigate the initial fear and anxiety associated with the cancer diagnosis.

This path can vary significantly by the cancer type — aggressive cancers like pancreatic cancer or acute leukemia, or slower cancers like early prostate cancer — patient risk factors, age and other health issues, symptoms, a lump, swelling, color, symmetry, et cetera. Diagnosis, testing, imaging, biopsy, et cetera. Staging based on the cancer type, treatments, surgery, chemo, radiation, and finally, critical questions to ask. This can vary from patient to patient, but oncology guidelines and real-world data show that this is a typical pathway.

Now I want to show you how we share information about the critical path on our website. We will use breast cancer as an example. This is the overview — what breast cancer is, where it starts. This is the very first step to understanding what follows.

Next, here is one of our original drawings to illustrate, for example, where a tumor may be located. Other medical graphics can be disturbing, but you can see how patient sensitive our illustrations are.

Second step of the critical pathway are risk factors — age, gender, personal history, family history, and more symptoms. Again, you see how patient sensitive our content is.

This slide shows the diagnosis and the difference in each test. A mammogram is an X-ray of the breast, and ultrasound uses sound waves to create a picture of the breast, and more to follow — biopsy. These are tissue samples taken to a lab to be examined by a pathologist. And this slide shows an image-guided biopsy that is explained.

Next, this is staging on the critical pathway. Here we explain staging for each tumor type, the description of the cancer, and treatment options available. This is an example of cancer in the lymph nodes. You can see in this slide the cancer has spread to the chest wall or the breast skin. And here is stage four metastatic breast cancer, where it has spread to distant organs.

Now in the critical pathway, we have the treatment. We offer detailed illustrated explanations of each treatment modality, helping patients understand options and to ask the right questions.

The first is surgery. Here you see the different surgery options that you and your doctor may consider. Each option is illustrated and explained in simple terms. Here we have the mastectomy. Here we have more radical mastectomies. Here you see lymph node biopsies and an explanation. And finally, reconstructive surgery and the different options available after surgery.

Another treatment option is radiation, and this can be given before or after surgery. These are the different types of radiation. This is internal radiation. This is interoperative radiation therapy, ORT. And now you see chemotherapy. This also may be given before or after surgery, as explained in our description on the slide. Hormone therapy is another consideration. Targeted therapy, immunotherapy.

And finally, questions to ask the doctor. Important to know this one was written by a doctor. He created a list of all the questions he wished his patients would ask. And now you see related topics. This can be found on the website for additional information for breast cancer.

CMedEd has a very comprehensive list of all the types of breast cancer. Each type has the same critical pathway for a patient to follow. Here you see male breast cancer, metaplastic, metastatic. Finally, triple negative.

Here's an example of our glossary of medical terms. We explain complex medical vocabulary in simple layman terms, easy-to-understand and patient-sensitive language. You simply hover your cursor over an underlined word in blue, and the definition pops up in plain, easy-to-understand language.

Here are some examples of our chronic diseases — understanding cardiovascular disease, heart disease, heart conditions. Here are other examples.

This is a snapshot of the critical path for type two diabetes. An example of how detailed our illustrations are — liver functionality. This is the pancreas, glucose being absorbed into the bloodstream during digestion.

So that's a quick tour of how we share critical information across the CMedEd platform.

In closing, I want to reiterate our goal in serving patients. We want to provide clarity, confidence, support, and trust for patients and their families going through a cancer journey.

I certainly wish something like CMedEd had existed when my family was experiencing this, and I've made it my life's work to help other families in this way. I'm proud of what we've accomplished with CMedEd to date, but there's much more to do.

Our vision for the future is to reach and educate patients, empower caregivers, and improve outcomes for everyone facing a cancer diagnosis.

I'm so glad to have the opportunity to share this in-depth content with you. My hope is that every American, no matter their background, income, or zip code, has access to the trusted information they need to make confident decisions about their care, especially when it matters most.

Thank you.