Conference Presentations
Access to diagnosis and treatment: the experience of cancer as wrangling with the system
In December 2022 we gave this conference presentation at The Sociological Association of Aotearoa New Zealand Annual Conference at Massey University in Auckland.
Abstract: This presentation is based on interviews with 81 people who have survived cancer longer than expected. Participants were identified through the cancer registry, networks, and were respondents to media publicity. As participants had long periods of living with cancer their voyage has required navigating the complexities of healthcare delivery in Aotearoa New Zealand.
There were differences in participants’ access to treatments, to diagnostic services, and in getting onto clinical trials. Access could be determined by a wide range of factors. For access to treatment this included participants’ level of citizenship, PHARMAC subsidisation, the stage of disease, waiting times in the public system, and the availability of oncology support over the holiday season. For non-conventional therapeutics access was determined mostly by affordability and knowledge of what was available, but also the legal situation related to some therapeutic practices. Access to diagnostics could be determined by what DHBs had available, what health insurance would cover, and issues of urgency. Getting access to clinical trials could be an outcome of oncologists ‘bending the rules’, lobbying from specialists, and ‘knowing the ropes’ to get onto trials. The presentation considers what hindered and facilitated accessing healthcare resources in life challenging situations.
Cancer diagnosis and a license to breach social norms
In November 2023 we gave this conference presentation at The Australian Sociological Association Annual Conference at the University of Sydney.
Abstract: A cancer diagnosis can arouse panic and fear, but for some it provides an opportunity to live life differently. This paper is based on research undertaken in Aotearoa New Zealand on the topic of exceptional cancer trajectories. Eighty-one participants who had been identified as living with a cancer diagnosis longer than expected were interviewed. For many participants the experience of having a cancer diagnosis was not all negative, with some participants suggesting that “it’s a privilege” and that it provided opportunities for them to live life differently. The diagnosis provided, for some, the opportunity to undertake lifestyle and consumption changes, to change attitudes, to take up new skills, to quit work, to change their ways of relating to others. The concepts of biographical disruption and posttraumatic growth are considered in relation to these accounts, and it is argued that the event of a cancer diagnosis can give license for people to breach social norms.