Challenging times clarify what we’re fighting for

On Feb. 17, 2025, Abe Bren was in familiar territory, yet still unsure what to expect. He came to the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine for a CT scan that would reveal whether his immunotherapy treatment had eradicated the last remaining tumor in his lungs, a metastatic cancer that had spread from his kidney—after he’d already survived prostate cancer and a heart attack.

Bren had been fighting for 14 years through multiple illnesses to be there for his wife and adult daughters, to keep singing with his salsa band, and to live his life to the fullest. His family and his Penn Medicine care team had been fighting along with him.

His oncologist, Naomi Haas, MD, brought the news. Today, he’d won. Bren rang the celebratory bell that day to signify the end of his cancer treatment, with a vigorous clang. His daughters Alexandra and Gabby Bren were at his side, ready to hug him in celebration. An entourage of supportive health care team members stretched out behind him, applauding and cheering.

 

 

 

When a person gets a serious medical diagnosis like cancer, reacting with fear is common, but fear of the cancer isn’t the whole story. It’s fear of losing things in life they value: time with family; the creativity of music, art, and other passions that make life worth living. Along with pain and distress, these galvanizing moments can also clarify what’s at stake that could be lost.

And these are the moments where people find strength in a common cause.

For medical professionals who help patients through these difficult times every day, the work of the fight is different, but the “why” behind their commitment is the same.

At Penn Medicine, the doctors and nurses providing care, and the biomedical researchers innovating new treatments, strive to deliver great care and better cures for people like Abe Bren to live, sing, and hug their children.

We push the boundaries of science for him and for people like Illeana Casiano-Vazquez, who was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer at the age of 40. She wants to see her sons grow up and keep jamming on their basement guitar and drum sets; to grow old with her husband. To help ensure that can happen, she’s one of the first participants in clinical trials who has had dormant tumor cells eradicated—providing hope that she and other patients in the future may not experience cancer recurrences after treatment.

We advance science hand-in-hand with and for people like Maggie Gaines and Ben Jarvis, who both learned they inherited a cancer-risk gene after family losses—which inspired them to volunteer for research aiming to intercept cancer before it can start.

The lives, livelihoods, and passions of the people we care for are why we fight, and why serious diseases like cancer cause such fear for those at the front lines facing them personally.

In the medical and biomedical research professions, the first months of 2025 have brought profound uncertainty as threats to federal research funding and changes in priorities from government agencies have shaken the agenda of those working each day to discover, test, and deliver new and better tools to treat and prevent disease.

But, in a way, we can view this new landscape as familiar territory. Just as it was for Abe Bren and Illeana Casiano-Vazquez, the fear of what could be lost is a source of galvanizing clarity. It’s a mirror-image view of what we care about and what we’re here for. And seeing that clearly, we can see that it is time to find shared purpose with our partners and coalitions, rally our strengths and resources, and lean into our missions.

Anywhere you turn at Penn Medicine, you can see signs of this tireless focus on why we’re here. It’s the drive behind our technology innovations and health care transformations, as Penn Medicine is reimagining care to make it simpler for staff and patients—so everyone can focus on what matters most.

Academic medicine’s mission is to make a world where everyone like Abe, Illeana, Maggie, and Ben has a chance to stay in the world with their families, contributing to their communities, making music, and greeting each new day in good health.