Diagnosed with breast cancer at 25. Co-creating a patient-centered class at 27.
At 25, PharmD student Victoria White was diagnosed with breast cancer. She’s sharing her experience as a patient for a new course taught at Northeastern University.
The medical test results arrived by email. Twenty-five-year-old Victoria White froze as her eyes scanned the screen.
“Ductal carcinoma.” The words were familiar to White, a Northeastern University student pursuing a doctor of pharmacy degree. She had previously worked as a research assistant for a cancer research center, and at the time she was reading the results, she was on co-op with a biotech company developing cancer immunotherapies. But this time, the words were describing her own stage 2 breast cancer diagnosis.
The rest of 2025 would be a blur of appointments, chemotherapy and surgeries, she said.
White knows what it’s like to be on the “other side of the chart.” Now 27 years old and in remission from ductal carcinoma, a common type of breast cancer that starts in the milk ducts, she wants to help her classmates become more empathetic practitioners by learning about the patient – and her – experience.
“Most of [our classes] are about how drugs work or how to be a good provider, but there’s nothing that actually teaches you how to be a provider from the patient point of view,” she said in an interview with Northeastern Global News.
That is, until she partnered with Northeastern clinical professor Jenny Van Amburgh to develop a class that puts the patient’s perspective in focus. “The Other Side of the Chart: Patients as Teachers” will be offered at Northeastern’s Boston campus this fall semester and open to students across the healthcare curriculum, including pharmacy, nursing, pre-med, physician assistants or anyone who can take a 5000-level course.
“It wasn’t easy what she’s gone through and it was a rare thing, but she is going to be a whole different pharmacist because she understands being on the other side,” Van Amburgh said of White’s experience. “We all read a chart, but there’s a real human on the other side that’s got a lot more emotions that go with it.”
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Creating such a course had been in the back of Van Amburgh’s mind since her friend, colleague and mentor Jeffrey Fundin was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer and died in 2022, she said. Fundin was a pharmacist who specialized in cancer and blood disorders and documented his life from diagnosis to death in a blog called “Pain, Lemons and Lemonade,” which was published on his website for healthcare providers to learn and share about pain management techniques.
Fundin shared his unique perspective as both a practitioner and a patient, maintaining an educational emphasis with a dose of humor for patients, families and clinicians that he may never meet.
He described his surgeries and chemotherapy appointments, explained in scientific detail his chemotherapy cocktail or how anti-nausea medication broke down in his body. He recounted moments he “forgot” he had cancer while spending time with family and the practical way he picked out a cemetery plot. A post written by his son detailed the frustrating time dealing with rigid hospice policy when his father wanted to spend time in Florida at the end of his life.
The new Northeastern course will draw from the lessons in Fundin’s blog posts, White’s lived experience and various studies and videos. One week will explain why active listening as a practitioner matters, while another will explore the psychological and emotional toll that comes with living with a chronic illness. The course will also teach students how to communicate medical information, help patients navigate insurance requirements and advocate what’s best for a patient over the written policy.
“Until you live it, that lived experience, I think it’s really hard for people to appreciate what that is and taking that step back,” Van Amburgh said.
White had never had a mammogram before she discovered the lump in her chest, as the recommended age to start is 40. Being diagnosed with breast cancer so young, she would often wonder, “Why do I deserve this?”
“I just couldn’t stop thinking about that. I still do. It’s one of those things where it lingers with you,” she said.
White practiced how to counsel a patient in labs, such as giving visual demonstrations of devices or communicating to the patient about potential side effects of drugs.
But as a patient herself, she learned the importance of routine, organizing her medications and understanding how to use them. She even learned about a drug that helps generate more white blood cells to fight infection, while she was taking it.
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White remembers the empathy and compassion she received during her cancer treatment, especially when things were out of her control, like a blood infection caused by her port, which is a medical device implanted in the upper chest to deliver medication, fluids or blood.
She faced a range of physical and emotional challenges, like losing her hair, not being able to eat her favorite meals, like sushi or fried food, and the emotional tug-of-war of receiving chemotherapy at the same hospital where her father works as an oncology pharmacist.
“I cried and broke down a lot and the best thing my providers did was listen,” White said.
She was able to continue her studies at Northeastern remotely during her treatment, which she described as a welcome distraction, and she is scheduled to graduate on time. Through it all, White said she has become more resilient as a person and doesn’t let unimportant matters, like long lines or traffic, bother her.
White said the experience has made her a better researcher, as she can empathize with the ordeal a patient might be enduring. It makes her want to help future patients feel safe and comfortable, she said. She hopes future practitioners will, too.
“You can’t console someone if you have never experienced the same thing,” she said. “I want to emphasize that humanizing patients really does make a difference.”
