Amanda Wilde (Host): Every patient's cancer journey is a story of resilience. And behind that story is a team of experts working to change the ending. Today, we are sitting down with the woman leading that change at Community Memorial Cancer Center right here in Ventura. She's a physician who quite literally grew up in the halls of a clinic. And after practicing at some of the most prestigious medical centers across the country, she's chosen Community Memorial to lead a new era of cancer care.

We're talking about the new Medical Director of the Community Memorial Cancer Center, Dr. Kay Anand. This is Wise and Well, presented by Community Memorial Healthcare. I'm Amanda Wilde. And Dr. Anand, we've got a lot to get to today. Welcome to Wise and Well.

Kay Anand, MD: Thank you so much. What a wonderful introduction there.

Host: Well, I did read that as a young girl, you used to run into your father's cardiology clinic and begged to help with the EKGs. Now, most kids want to be astronauts or firemen, but what was it about that environment that made you fall in love with medicine?

Kay Anand, MD: Well, first of all, as a child, not only my dad, my mother was also a physician and they would give me medicines very early on, and I would feel better immediately. So, I thought there were magicians, and they were giving me portions that made me feel well. So with that, I would run off—to just mainly avoid chores—to go to my dad's clinic, which was just a few blocks away, and I would start doing EKGs. The squiggly lines on the EKG was, like, so fascinating. And you could read about somebody's heart with those few squiggly lines. So, that got me interested in medicine very early on and never regretted it since then.

Host: And so, how did you ultimately end up choosing oncology? Or maybe we should back up a little and talk a little more about your background and training and fill in that gap between childhood and where you are today.

Kay Anand, MD: So obviously, very early on, I knew I was going to go into medicine. So right after high school, there was a program where I could go into medicine directly. It's a long six-and-a-half-year medical school program that I started in India. After getting my MD degree in India, as it was pretty often that we did, we went to England for additional studies in National Health Service in the UK.

I just came for a one-year fellowship to New York, and then fell in love with New York City. Which 20 five-year old would not like the bustle and the hustle of New York? So, there I was. I decided to redo Internal Medicine at Robert Wood Johnson in New Brunswick, New Jersey. And then, i went on to do my oncology fellowship in Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

Host: Was there a specific moment or patient that showed you that oncology was your calling?

Kay Anand, MD: It may not be a moment, but in the '90s when I was training internal medicine, there was very little exposure to oncology. Cancer was a big mystery. So, I always thought, "Can you imagine just a group of cancer cells within your body literally taking over your entire system? How fascinating could that be?" It almost felt like it was the enemy within. So, I felt like we needed to attack this problem, and there was an opening for one of the very prestigious cancer centers there. So, I just got into it after that.

Host: So for those who may be new to a diagnosis, what exactly is the role of an oncologist on the patient's team?

Kay Anand, MD: So, an oncologist can have three different roles. First of all, they tend to treat cancer with medicines, which can be chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or pills. Second is they can really be a coordinator of all their treatments. So, cancer is treated by surgeons, by radiation-oncologist, your social workers. So, you can be kind of like a conductor of this big orchestra, helping actually get the patient through all these different parts. And then, third important thing is followup, detection of new cancers, support to the family, and any genetics that may make them more susceptible to other cancers. So, it's a big role that we play.

Host: Yeah, it sounds like you're really the center point of the medical team, and that's not just during treatment, but afterwards as well. You have practiced all over the country from New York to Arizona to Los Angeles. Why is Community Memorial in Ventura the right place for the next chapter of your career?

Kay Anand, MD: Look at Ventura, it's beautiful, right? Sunny, that's a big part of it. I call it paradise without the chaos. And then, it's close to Los Angeles where my family lives. So, that's important too. CMH was starting a new cancer center. Their philosophy aligned with mine. That's also very important where you go choose to work. So, that's the reason I came to CMH.

Host: Yeah. Community Memorial has recently expanded its cancer program. What excites you most about this team and the physical center itself?

Kay Anand, MD: Well, first of all, I talked about Ventura being a great place to work, great work-life balance, if you want to call it that. In addition is CMH wants to create a cancer center that is for the people. When you create new entities these days in medicine, it was a lot about finance. But they really wanted to create a center for the community.

So, we have an amazing team that, along with the community resource center, that's really for the people of Ventura. And that's what I wanted to do in my, let's say, the fourth portion of my career. So, this was perfect.

Host: Well, that dovetails nicely with my next question, which is the patient side of that. Many patients feel they have to drive to LA or big academic centers for the best care. Why is it actually a medical advantage for a patient to receive oncology expertise right here in Ventura, close to their home and their support system?

Kay Anand, MD: Well, that's the key, right? The word cancer is very scary for people, and you are best when you are with people who you know, with your family and friends. You have a team of people who can attack this difficult chapter in your life. Now, if you're far away, you'll lose that contact and the team.

So, I think we want to provide resources close to people's homes in a community that they're comfortable with, so that they can get the best outcome. But by the way, if we don't have a treatment that we are unable to give, or it is not available in the center, we will refer out to UCLA or City of Hope. I just had to do that in the long weekend, the President's weekend. I needed a patient treated right away for a difficult diagnosis. And I contacted one of my friends out there. And he's actually here, back here. We're going to do a combined approach of care. So, I think the idea of care near home makes it a success.

Host: One of the most unique aspects of Community Memorial Cancer Center is that you can execute treatment plans for patients who were diagnosed elsewhere. If someone gets a diagnosis at a distant hospital, but wants to do their infusion or followup care locally in Ventura, how does that process work?

Kay Anand, MD: So, we do need a referral from a primary care provider referring, you know, the patient to our center. Also, you know, insurances play a part. So, we are on most of the insurance plans. But if we're on the insurance plan, we can take the patient here to treat. So basically, we just need a primary care referral, and we'll find ways of contacting their previous provider to get the information from them and go on with the next step.

Host: How do those collaborations like the one you mentioned with other organizations ultimately benefit the Ventura community as a whole?

Kay Anand, MD: So by connecting with tertiary referral centers, we make clinical trials accessible. And since they, the tertiary referral centers, the physician know us, in some way, we're able to connect with them and provide not only local care, but when things are not available locally, we're able to refer them out and work with them in collaboration. So, some part of it is done there. We can do some part of it here so that the patients are not traveling all the time to part of places.

Host: Now, one thing I know about you is you have a special interest in lung and gynecological cancers. What are some of the most hopeful breakthrough treatments you're seeing right now that are available to patients at Community?

Kay Anand, MD: Well, lung cancer has changed in the last seven years. You know, previously, smoking was related to lung cancer. And we have a large group of non-smokers and never-smokers who have lung cancer, which is the most growing problem in the world. And these are directed through genetic mutations. So, it's just not enough to say you have lung cancer. We have to literally parse through it and uncover what subtypes they have in terms of what genetic mutations they have, and we can use targeted treatments to treat them. So, that treatment process has completely changed over the last seven years in lung cancer, and that's why some of us had to go ahead and specialize in that particular cancer type.

GYN cancer was a good interest of mine for a very long time. My mother is an obstetrician gynecologist, and she always said women tend to neglect themselves. They always put family first. So, she always said I should do something for women. And we have an amazing gynecological oncology surgeon that I work with in my same center. So, this seemed the ideal place to come and work together, a surgeon and a person who can do treatments.

Host: Your bio mentions that you amalgamate your patients goals with modern advances. When a patient sits across from you for the first time, what is the one thing you want them to feel or understand before they leave your office?

Kay Anand, MD: I want them to understand that we are here for them. We are on their team, and we want them to do well. I may offer a whole bunch of treatments, but the patient's philosophy may be completely different. We have to match our philosophies with where they are in their treatment journey. So, that is really the key. When they leave my clinic in our patient care setting, I want them to know that whatever they decide, we're here to help them.

Host: You are a wonderful spokesperson for the mystery and magic of medicine and for the community Memorial Cancer Center. Thank you so much for an enlightening conversation. And good luck to you as you embark upon this new chapter in your career.

Kay Anand, MD: Thank you.

Host: That was Dr. Kay Anand, Medical Director of the Community Memorial Cancer Center. For more information, please visit mycmh.org/cancer. If you enjoyed this podcast, please share it on your social channels and explore our entire podcast library for topics of interest to you. Thanks for listening to Wise and Well, presented by Community Memorial Healthcare.