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Arif Kamal

Chief Patient Officer at American Cancer Society; medical oncologist and palliative care physician at Duke University.

Jul 29, 2026

12:28
it's just permanent now.
12:31
We are in our oncology era where, you know, I was seeing a statistic.
12:35
There's over 250 new drugs that have been approved in our space, right, in the last 20 years or so.
12:39
And that's remarkable.
12:41
And we've still got work to do.
12:43
But what we're also finding is this equilibrium between the challenge of being availability of interventions and accessibility of those interventions.
12:51
We really reached this inflection point where we have to think about both.
17:07
And does that mean we change drastically medical school, fellowship structure, different CMEs for oncologists?
Ali RoginCORRESPONDENT
9:41
What are some of the major milestones you see that we've achieved over that time?
9:45
Yeah, 40 years is pretty remarkable as we think about it.
9:47
Started in 1985.
9:48
I would, you know, really center around the number 40 actually for a lot of the great accomplishments.
9:53
Breast cancer mortality has reduced by over 40% over that period of time.
9:57
In addition, we've now reduced the age of which we recommend starting mammograms, now down to the age of 40.
10:04
In addition, we're starting to see other areas of disparities and gaps closing as well.
Ali RoginCORRESPONDENT
10:17
And to that point, Arif, sticking with you, where do some of the main challenges still remain?

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