Sep 02, 2020
Morel dove into profession from career in infusion center
Sara and her father, Thomas, who passed away in 2012 from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Sara Morel, AAS, BS, CTR, Lead Cancer Registrar for MidMichigan Health (Midland, MI) was selected as Elekta’s 2020 Registrar of the Year, an honor that the company bestows on certified tumor registrars (CTR) who have made critical contributions to the success of their registry and profession.
We recently spoke with Sara about her career path, the importance of cancer registries (see sidebar: What is a cancer registry) and the activities she has engaged in over the last six years that earned her the distinction of Registrar of the Year.
Elekta:How long have you been a CTR?
Sara Morel（SM）：I began working in MidMichigan’s cancer registry in 2013, then took the exam to qualify as a CTR in 2014 and I became the Lead Cancer Registrar in 2015. Before that, I was working in the infusion center doing the chemotherapy insurance verification and scheduling from 2011 to 2012.
Elekta:What made you make the switch from the infusion center to the cancer registry?
SM:In 2010, my father was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 48. Although he had a bone marrow transplant, he was considered in remission for just 20 days before it came back with a vengeance. The disease had transformed into diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. He lived 18 months after his transplant and this Friday [August 21, 2020] it will be eight years since he died.
在我爸爸去世后，我正在努力在输液中心工作。并不是那不是我不想帮助癌症患者，但我每天都在那里围绕着我父亲提醒我的患者bob体育网赌。它让我伤心，这真的很难处理。那是我的经理告诉我关于癌症登记处的职位的时候。bob体育网赌
I took training through the State of Michigan every Friday for six months. It was intense coursework and at times I felt like I was in over my head. But I persevered, got through the state training, then took all my classes through the American Health Information Management Association and passed the CTR exam.
Elekta:What are the emotional and intellectual traits necessary to be a stand-out CTR?
SM:必须有某种情感联系。任何在肿瘤学中工作的人 - 从医生，护士，行政人员和所有肿瘤学人员到我们的董事和注册商 - 您必须与肿瘤学患者有情感联系，因为它们是不同的。他们通常是恶劣，很多人都没有生存，但是很多人都这样做 - 这是一个悲伤的工作，但也有幸福的时刻。所以，尝试制作某种影响力的奉献精神和坚持不懈，以便他们能够生存。
Intellectually, you gain an appreciation that data drives patient care, outcomes and ultimately influences survival rates. It all comes from the registry. By collecting excellent data and getting it to cancer centers and researchers, we can help caregivers make informed decisions about treatments that might work better for particular patients. For instance, which is better: chemotherapy or immunotherapy? I have seen that shift since I have been a CTR that more patients are getting immunotherapy And very likely, the data we collect plays a strong role in this trend and others like it.
癌症登记bob体育网赌处是癌症专业的核心gram. For those 385 items per case that we abstract, we can run a report for anyone who wants it and is authorized requestor to have it, be that the cancer center director, cancer researchers or administrative staff. It’s very rewarding to be able to provide the data to show them that it is right there at their fingertips.
Elekta:The person who nominated you said you have been particularly enthusiastic about sharing the abstracting guides that you created at MidMichigan Health. Can you tell me about these?
SM:In a cancer registry, abstracts organize and summarize information in a patient’s medical record for each tumor. The abstract includes patient demographics, diagnostic studies, staging, treatment and follow-up.
I got very interested in sharing best practices by creating guides that indicate what’s required and how we at MidMichigan Health are documenting it. I share a lot of these guides on social media and do it on my own time. I have received a tremendous response from people in all 50 states. New CTRs sometimes don’t know where to start, because every center has different things they track. They can use the guides I create in Word and customize them however they need to.
Elekta:You’ve been involved in leading or presenting at local and national CTR meetings, as well. What are those about?
SM:Our annual state meeting includes many CTRs, but we sensed a need for smaller group roundtable meetings to talk about different topics. Our first one this year was on January 31, which I and my colleagues led the way. It was pre-Covid-19, so we met in person at our hospital. A representative from 18 Michigan hospitals attended. I took a picture of it and put it on my LinkedIn page, which has gotten 800 views so far. The next one was a two-hour webinar in April and in October we’re doing to do another remote meeting called “Let’s Catch Up,” because there have been so many changes since January. That meeting will cover all of the new templates that are now required from the Commission on Cancer.
Because I have been so active in sharing our best practices, I was also invited two consecutive years, in 2018 and 2019, to present at the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR), which was awesome. It’s so rewarding that there is such collaboration to help and support CTRs with education and training.
Elekta:我也明白的CTR，我也可以推导。你能告诉我这个吗？
SM:几个月前，我开始指导，每月向罗彻斯特社区技术学院的学生提供两次。我也为NCRA进行了一些指导，所以他们会伸出去，问我是否可以参加学生。
I also get emails and texts on a daily or weekly basis from students asking for help and I do my best to get back to them. It’s mentoring, in a sense, because I will answer if they contact me. In fact, yesterday a CTR called me from Texas yesterday, which I thought was a spam call. I answered anyway and spoke with her because my cell phone number is out there. I’ve talked to her before – we had become Facebook friends and she was asking for advice. I will take calls, messages and emails from anyone if they have a question and I do my best to get back to them. I’m still learning but I just try to help out as much as I can.
Elekta:MidMichigan Health usesElekta’s METRIQ® cancer registry data management solution. What are some things you like about this product?
SM:我们已经使用了Metriq多年了。我真的喜欢使用查询向导来创建报告以提取数据，并易于自定义报告。UDF-User定义的字段很大，因为它们使我能够自定义要在内部收集的数据项。Metriq的布局和流量也很好地工作，很容易理解。Elekta支持员工，如果每次我们需要向他们求助时总是愉快，非常有帮助。
Elekta:What are your thoughts on being named Elekta’s Cancer Registrar of the Year?
SM:我非常荣幸和感动这个奖项,它is very much appreciated, but I couldn’t do my job nearly as effectively without my team of CTRs, our entire Integrated Network Cancer Program – which includes physicians, nurses, cancer navigators, administrative staff and all other oncology staff – in addition to my director Joan Herbert, Pharm.D., director of the oncology service line, MidMichigan Health, and also our Chief of Oncology Melwyn Sequeira, MBBS, MD, FRCS (Eng), FACS. They are very engaged and that allows us to be very effective and efficient with all aspects of the registry. Historically, MidMichigan Health cancer programs have been accredited as individual facilities, but in July 2019, we underwent our very first accreditation survey as an Integrated Network Cancer Program, and were awarded a three-year Accreditation with Commendation from the Commission on Cancer-American College of Surgeons. This showed what strong teamwork and leadership can achieve.
我很感谢成为一个充满许多热情CTR的伟大职业生涯的一部分。总体而言，它在全国各地的CTR之间是一个集体努力，目标是为了分享最佳做法并将每位患者治疗我们所能的目标，而这一切都以优秀的数据收集开始。
What is a cancer registry?癌症bob体育网赌登记处收集并结合有关癌症患者的详细信息以及他们收到的初步处理，以回答问题，例如：
Cancer registries analyze the data collected and share the answers to these questions with other groups, like state comprehensive cancer control coalitions, which work to prevent cancer. These groups may find that some people are not getting cancer screening tests, or they are making choices that raise their chance of getting cancer. The data may also show that certain groups of people are getting cancer more than others. Cancer control groups and advocates work to address the problems identified. Then they look to cancer registries for new information to help them know if their solutions are working. 资源：https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/npcr/value/registries.htm |
