This spring, Joan DeFeis spent several weeks traveling across New Zealand and Australia—the most recent excursion in a long list of far-flung destinations for the avid world traveler.

It was a trip years in the making, one that had to be postponed in 2018 when Joan received a shocking diagnosis. While gardening one day, she attempted to uproot a large weed and felt a pop in her side. She thought it might be a broken rib. An X-ray determined she hadn’t broken a rib but most likely tore a ligament. However, the X-ray also revealed a shadow on her lung. Months later, after a follow-up exam and multiple tests, DeFeis—a healthy, active non-smoker—was ultimately diagnosed with lung cancer.

An Innovative Approach

DeFeis entrusted her care to experts at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, including thoracic surgeon Daniel Wiener, MD, who specializes in lung cancer surgery. Wiener and his team determined DeFeis would need to undergo a pneumonectomy to remove her entire right lung—a major, invasive surgery. Fortunately, Wiener was able to offer DeFeis a much less invasive alternative: video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS). The surgery would accomplish the same goal with fewer risks and a quicker, easier recovery.

“We continuously innovate and refine our surgical methods to ease the patient experience while making sure we are still treating cancer optimally,” says Wiener. Following her surgery, DeFeis underwent four rounds of chemotherapy to ensure any lingering cancer cells were totally removed. Seven years later, she is cancer-free and grateful to Wiener and her care team for taking a novel approach to her surgery.

A New Era in Cancer Care

At the Brigham and across the Mass General Brigham (MGB) community, our patients are at the center of everything we do. As we write the next chapter in our long history of cancer care with the development of the MGB Cancer Institute, this remains our guiding ethos—giving patients like DeFeis the best chance for the best outcome possible.

To learn more about including the Brigham in your estate plans, please contact Kathleen Duffy, assistant vice president of gift planning, at giftplanning@bwh.harvard.edu or 617 424 4326.