Cancer Assist Podcast: Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest

Tonight we’re thrilled to join Dr. Hsien Seow and Dr. Sammy Winemaker to launch their new book, Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest: 7 Keys for Navigating a Life-Changing Diagnosis, at the Hamilton Public Library.

Drs. Seow and Winemaker were also recent guests on the #CancerAssistPodcast hosted by Bill Evans. Listen on our website or find the Cancer Assist Podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify and our Youtube channel. https://cancerassist.ca/cancer-assist-podcast/

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“Patients put their full trust in the medical system,” says Dr. Sammy Winemaker, co-author of the newly released book, Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest: 7 Keys for Navigating a Life-Changing Diagnosis. “They think information will come to them in a timely manner and when they need it,” she says on the most recent episode of the Cancer Assist Podcast. “We know that there’s an effort for that to happen, but it’s imperfect,” she says.

Dr. Winemaker and the book’s co-author, Dr. Hsien Seow, have spent their careers helping those who are facing serious, often terminal, illness. For years, they often heard patients and families say they felt unprepared and overwhelmed. Despite years of education, research, and advocacy, they continued to hear patients and families say “Why didn’t anyone tell me that sooner.”

Together they’ve created the Waiting Room Revolution with a goal of improving the patient and family illness experience.

“The Waiting Room Revolution is a movement. It’s more than our podcasts. It’s more than this book. It’s a change in the idea of how active patients and families need to really own their health care and take charge of their journey,” Dr. Seow told Dr. Bill Evans on the Cancer Assist Podcast.

Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest reveals seven keys for a better illness experience, empowering patients and families with practical tools to navigate the health care system with knowledge, confidence, and clarity.

“Those who had a better journey felt more prepared, more at peace, with things. [They were] more accepting and their families weren’t so overwhelmed,” says Dr. Seow. “That’s where we came up with the seven keys for having a better illness experience,” he says.

One of the seven keys is Walking Two Roads — hoping for the best but planning for the rest.

“This key teaches you to toggle between staying positive and maintaining faith in medical treatments and seeking honest, accurate information. You keep your eye on the best outcome while considering what to do if things go sideways,” write the authors in the book.

To read about the other six keys to navigating a life-changing diagnosis, pick up a copy of Dr. Seow and Winemaker’s book or tune in to their conversation on the Cancer Assist Podcast, streaming now!