A Candid Conversation About Patient and Caregiver Advocacy

Join Debbie’s Dream Foundation and co-authors Dr. John and Liza Marshall for “A Candid Conversation About Patient and Caregiver Advocacy” webinar based on their bestselling book “Off Our Chests: A Candid Tour Through the World of Cancer.” The webinar will take place on Friday, December 16, 2022, at 1:00 p.m. EST, and attendees will be able to participate in a live Q&A session throughout the program.

Liza Marshall, a retired communications attorney and a graduate of Duke University and the University of Virginia School of Law, left practice in 2005 to channel her skills to cancer support organizations and her family. She helped found Hope Connections for Cancer Support in
Bethesda, MD. In 2006 at the age of forty-three, Liza was diagnosed with the most deadly form of breast cancer, triple-negative. She continues to be an active volunteer at Hope Connections, her church, and her community.

Dr. Marshall received his training at Duke University, the University of Louisville, and Georgetown University. Dr. Marshall is an internationally recognized expert in new drug development for GI cancer. Dr. Marshall has become an outspoken advocate for GI cancer
patients and the importance of clinical research participation. In 2009, he established the Otto J Ruesch Center for the Cure of GI Cancers, an organization solely focused on improving the lives of GI cancer patients through innovative research, personalized medicine, and focused advocacy.

In 2021, he and his wife, Liza Marshall, published their first book, “Off Our Chests,” exploring our world of cancer medicine and the impact of a cancer diagnosis on patients, caregivers, and cancer professionals.

Summary of the book:

Off Our Chests, published in May 2021, recipient of five national and international awards, is a must-read for all those patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers who are either forced into or chose the world of cancer.

As a medical oncologist specializing in gastrointestinal cancers, John Marshall was outspoken in his resentment and envy of the dominance of breast cancer advocacy and research. But then his wife, Liza, was diagnosed at age 43 with high-risk breast cancer, whose survival rate at the time was far from certain.

In Off Our Chests, Liza vividly details her treatment, her feelings of desperation and vulnerability, the complex decisions she had to make from mastectomy to chemotherapy and radiation, and finally, the elective removal of her other breast—all experienced in the sometimes
uncomfortably public setting of being treated at her husband’s cancer center. John eloquently takes the reader inside the world of cancer care and research, pulling back the curtain for all to see. John’s sudden transformation from an oncologist to a caregiver forces him to rethink
everything he has learned and teaches as a leader in cancer care. No longer able to maintain complete objectivity with his own patients, he ultimately exhausts himself trying to provide ideal cancer care for all.

At once deeply personal, wry, and insightful, Off Our Chests is a book not just about cancer but about medicine, healing, and marriage.