Behind the Breakthroughs
The Your Stories Podcast

Hear candid conversations between people conquering cancer – patients, their family and friends, and doctors and researchers working to help us all.

Priscilla and Evanthia
Behind the Breakthroughs
Three Generations of Conquerors
Priscilla Brastianos, MD, tells her friend and mentor, Evanthia Galanis, MD, how her late grandmother and mother drive her unwavering commitment to help people with cancer.

A Grandmother's Legacy

As a girl, Dr. Brastianos’s mother told her stories of the grandmother she never knew: a medical student who diagnosed her own fatal breast cancer. The legend of her grandmother, who practiced medicine even in her final days, inspired Brastianos to become an oncologist and physician scientist. 

A Mother's Wish

When Dr. Brastianos was in medical school, her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.

"And there we began the journey of her chemotherapy, her surgeries, her radiation. And I knew that I wanted to change the course of oncology because of the suffering that came with cancer," recalls Dr. Brastianos.

Her mother told her to be bold and to follow her dreams. And in her final days she offered a challenge to Dr. Brastianos and her brother. 

 "She made us promise that we were going to find better treatments for patients with cancer," says Dr. Brastianos. 

Now a leading researcher, Dr. Brastianos is keeping that promise.

 

 

Your Stories
A Daughter Keeps Her Promise
Her death is a reminder everyday that we need to do better for cancer. And so that's what drives me and motivates me.
Dr. Priscilla Brastianos