My name is Dr. Emily Ayers, and I am a cancer doctor who specializes in blood cancers and
blood disorders. I see all types of patients with both Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphomas, and this varies from very indolent diseases that don't require any therapy at all to more aggressive lymphomas that require inpatient stays for chemotherapies. My father was diagnosed with lymphoma when I was growing up. Experiencing how a cancer diagnosis is life-altering for both the patient and the family has really motivated me to help other patients and their families really navigate the treatment and just helping patients through that has really been something that I've wanted to do since that time. What I usually like to accomplish at my first visit when I'm meeting a patient is really just getting to know the patient and know their family and who their support system is. More importantly, I think my role is really to educate the patient and their family, and really help them understand what their disease is and the number of different therapies that we have available. And then from there, it's really just a conversation with the patient and the shared decision making on what their goals are and how we think we can tailor therapy to get them to where they would like to go. In thinking about how lymphoma therapy has changed over the last several years, I think it's very exciting that there are a number of new therapies that were approved just in the last several months. I am proud that UVA is really getting involved in all of the cutting-edge therapies with CAR T therapy we do here. And I just think it's an exciting time to be able to treat lymphoma, and to enroll patients on clinical trials with the most up-to-date therapies.