Wendy Baer, MD Where Science Becomes Hope® Spotlight

Wendy Baer, MD, is the director of psychiatric oncology at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. As a psychiatric oncologist, Baer helps patients and their families deal with the stress of receiving a cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment. She has expertise in treating clinical depression and anxiety both with medications and psychotherapy to help people manage emotions, behaviors and relationships. Her fundamental goal is to promote wellness and maximize patients' quality of life as much as possible. She believes strongly in the team approach to patient care and collaborates regularly with patients, doctors, nurses and social workers.

Baer addresses below how the research and clinical work done at Winship inspires hope.

How can hope inspire patients with cancer?

Hope is a word that we all feel better when we use. I think it's important to be careful how you define hope. It matters differently to different people, depending on where you are with your medical condition, so it helps to keep expectations in check. But we can think about hope as maybe a good day ahead or some pleasant moment or a person or a place that may be something you can plan to engage in. Where's a place that you may love to go? Is it a nearby park? Is it a nearby pond or lake? Is it a special spiritual space that you've been to? Can you plan to visit there soon? Is there a person you can connect with, somebody maybe you've known from long ago? Could you send a message, do a video call, make plans to get together? I think it's hopeful to see friends and people we've shared life experiences with.

How does Winship’s research benefit patients?

We have tremendous research going on at Winship. I am so proud to work alongside people that understand cancer cell division and cellular processes in a way that they can devise new treatments and use those here at Winship Cancer Institute. Our phase I clinical trials operations are enormous. They're complex. They are exciting, and I think that the people that work there give us all hope that we'll have more tools to help people with cancer in the future.

What inspires you to provide cancer care?

I think sometimes we take it for granted that we have future appointments several months down the road, and it's all going to work out—not only cancer care, but also traffic and the weather and some of the tensions that are in our community and stresses people deal with in their community—that it'll all come together, and we'll see each other again. But we'll get together in an appointment maybe months down the road from the last time we met, and we're still here. I can think of several patients who have stage 4 cancer diagnoses that they're dealing with. And they show up for their appointments, and we really celebrate that we have this time together, and we've made it to this time. I think for people who are dealing with cancer, they're really attentive to savoring the time that they have. Maybe you live more fully when you savor the time that you have.

What does “where science becomes hope” mean to you?

Sometimes people will ask me if it's depressing to work in a cancer center, how hard it is, how sick people get and how people are dying because of cancer. I regularly remind people about there being 18 million cancer survivors living in the US today. And that people every day are living, even though they have a cancer diagnosis, even though they have been through treatment or they are still going through treatment, that they are making the most of their life in the setting of cancer care. I really appreciate that our teams work very hard to manage symptoms, so fatigue or nausea or changes in people's bodies are minimized, so that people can go out and do other things that they care about, and their life isn't consumed by their cancer experience.