Chief Medical Officer, WebMD, New York, NYJOHN WHYTE: Welcome, everyone, to Cancer in Context. I'm Dr. John Whyte. I'm the Chief Medical Officer at WebMD. There certainly have been a lot of advancements in cancer treatment and diagnosis over the past year. But what do people really need to understand? And let's be honest, workloads have become more intense.
So we have several studies that are looking at the role of de-escalating treatment while improving outcomes, as well as how can we sequence treatments that the resulting outcomes can then allow us to further personalize the treatment, and in some cases, omit or change the therapy because the treatment didn't work as well as it should have, or the treatment worked so well that we don't need to continue any treatment after the...
And globally, since we are a global organization, where prevention also is very important, just one in eight girls are vaccinated against HPV. And as you know, in many parts of the world, cervical cancer is a primary cancer that could be prevented. So we have an exciting opportunity to examine the new and emerging AI tools to try to find ways to help clinicians and patients take advantage of all of the research and the knowledge gains that we're making each and every day in our field.
For example, we're looking at ways to use large language models and generative AI to reduce the time cancer care professionals spend on the tedious documentation tasks. To that end actually, ASCO will soon be publishing a guideline for clinicians on using AI in practice that can help our members find ways to be more efficient.
JOHN WHYTE: Now you and I are talking at a time of graduation. People are graduating from medical school. We saw the match just a few months ago. But let's put it out there. We're having some workforce shortages, including in the field of oncology. So what is ASCO doing to address oncology workforce shortages?
So to address that, ASCO is taking a two-pronged approach. The first is what can we do to support our workforce today? And secondly, how can we attract new diverse clinicians in this very exciting, what I consider the best field in medicine you can be in? So with regards to the first prong, one approach is to embrace the power of mentoring.
JOHN WHYTE: Now one of the success stories in cancer care is that people are living longer. And in many ways, we're so focused on diagnosis and personalized treatment. That I wanted to ask you, how is ASCO leading the charge to provide continuity and coordination of care for an increasing number of individuals surviving or living with cancer? Because we didn't see as much of that 10 years ago, and now we're seeing much more.