June 21, 2024
How a cancer company supports its own cancer survivors
Exact Sciences creates an employee network for anyone who has faced cancer.
When Stephanie Birkey Reffey, Ph.D., arrived at Exact Sciences in 2021, she introduced herself to her new teammates as, among other things, a cancer survivor.
The patient advocacy and alliance relations director had battled lymphoma. Through those early getting-to-know-you conversations, she found that several others in her new professional orbit were cancer survivors too.
“There wasn’t really anything to bring us together at Exact,” she remembers. “It was sort of a happy accident if you found someone else was a survivor like you were. I felt like there was a need there.”
At the time, the company was launching an intranet platform that team members could use to form interest-based communities. Reffey polled the eight or so cancer survivors she had met and asked if they’d like to form a group to connect about their experiences and offer support.
At the time, the company was launching an intranet platform that team members could use to form interest-based communities. Reffey polled the eight or so cancer survivors she had met and asked if they’d like to form a group to connect about their experiences and offer support.
The effort grew from there. Now numbering more than 40 members, the group is about to formalize as Exact Sciences’ newest employee inclusion network.
Cancer support in the workplace
The American Cancer Society estimates that around 5.4% of the United States population are cancer survivors.1 That means that Exact Sciences’ workforce of 6,800 could contain more than 300 cancer survivors at any given time.
Many employees continue to work as they navigate diagnosis, treatment, and beyond. That makes it critical for workplaces to support members of their team who are facing cancer, says Kristin Jablonski, director of wellness, fitness, and nutrition at Exact Sciences.
“A lot of individual stressors can happen when that diagnosis happens, and we offer many ways for somebody to receive support,” Jablonski says.
The inclusion network is one form of support. Jablonski also points to the company’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP) as a hub for employees to access personalized assistance. The program offers an array of confidential resources, including financial and legal consultations, a referrals network for finding help with various life tasks, and services for mental health and well-being. While everyone on the Exact Sciences team can access EAP services, many of the resources prove essential for those navigating cancer, she says.
“I used to work with cancer patients as a dietitian. Sometimes even eating right can be a struggle” for people during treatment, Jablonski says. Through the company’s various well-being programs, “individuals can work with a registered dietitian. They can work on finances. They can work on stress.”
The company’s wellness slate also features fitness classes and personal training. All of these offerings help build a holistic care approach that is “head-to-toe care, inside and out,” she says.
That goes hand-in-hand with the company’s medical plans. Jane Fahey, U.S. benefits director at Exact Sciences, says that the company emphasizes preventative care and cancer screening to help its team stay healthy. If a cancer diagnosis does come, the company’s most-used medical plan offers coverage for second opinions. The plan also offers a cancer support program that connects patients with a dedicated oncology nurse to help coordinate their care and gives them access to a team of cancer experts, Fahey says.
The company offers leave accommodation programs, and it trains its people leaders to ensure they are equipped to support employees with empathy. All of this is critical to Exact Sciences’ purpose to help eradicate cancer, Jablonski says.
“We have a responsibility to our employees to wrap our arms around them just like we would a patient with a diagnosis,” she says. “Our team is at the top of our flywheel, and we can’t do this work without them. So we need to provide care and attention and resources for our people because some of them are also our patients. People’s experiences are very different, and so we need to have many resources so that they can manage things in a way that’s meaningful and impactful for them.”
Lifting up survivors
Cancer is the second leading cause of all deaths worldwide. Millions of new cases are diagnosed each year, and survival rates vary widely among populations and types of cancer. 2
Cancer Survivor Month is observed each June to honor and support anyone who has received a cancer diagnosis or who lives with an elevated family risk of cancer, known as a “previvor.”
Exact Sciences’ Reffey is excited to formalize the group at Exact Sciences, not only to continue supporting the company’s cancer survivors but also to welcome anyone who has been impacted by cancer, including caregivers.
Exact Sciences’ Reffey is excited to formalize the group at Exact Sciences, not only to continue supporting the company’s cancer survivors but also to welcome anyone who has been impacted by cancer, including caregivers.
She expects the group to interact regularly, share resources, and evolve to create even more value and meaning for its members. In addition to supporting survivors, the network can help Exact Sciences team members learn how to better support their colleagues with cancer. It can also guide the company toward new ways to support team members navigating their own cancer diagnoses or those of loved ones, she says.
Survivors will also maintain a closed group within the network, preserving a smaller, safe space for sharing what they’re facing and getting advice from those who’ve been there, Reffey says.
She remembers how difficult it was to navigate her own cancer diagnosis, even as a professional in the field.
“I often say I had every resource in the world, and I understood the language, and I knew the community and all the things, and it was still the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Reffey says. “If I had all of that and was still struggling, I can’t imagine what somebody coming to it fresh is going through.”
The newest inclusion network at Exact Sciences, she says, has the potential to make that easier, one cancer survivor at a time.
Spoken like a survivor: Brad
Brad Murray is a market access director at Exact Sciences and was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma several decades ago, shortly after graduating from college. He joined the survivors group after discovering it on the company intranet.
“I thank God every day that I’ve had the outcome that I did. Things could have been a lot worse. But it takes time to forget that you had cancer, if you ever do. I had lymphoma, which is cancer in the lymphatic system. Even years after I finished treatment, I would feel my neck a little swollen, which happens when you get a cold or bronchitis or whatever, and my first thought was, ‘Is my cancer back?’
“Eventually I learned to handle that and deal with it. There wasn’t a safe place like this group where I could have talked to other people about the rush of anxiety that can cause, to have somebody to listen and be like, ‘Yeah, I understand, I’ve been there.’
“It’s valuable to have something like this in the workplace because, a lot of times, a survivor can be living life normally, and then something happens to bring back this flood of memories. And if that happens to happen when you’re at work and you have a personal connection with somebody to talk to, it can help you get through that tough period.”
Spoken like a survivor: Lorie
Lorie Madsen works as an IT applications architect at Exact Sciences and was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022. After navigating her own experience with medical appointments, treatment side effects, and company benefits, she joined the survivors group and volunteered to work as its project manager, helping to shepherd the group toward formalizing.
“I can’t stand to see people suffer. I just felt like I was here to say, ‘Hold on a second. This is a gap, and I want to help fill it.’ Cancer has given me courage. I don’t know if I’m gonna have a recurrence in a year — I don’t know how long I’m gonna be here. And I am using that fuel to benefit the lives of others.
“I like my job, but I would rather have my legacy at this company be that I helped drive our first cancer survivors inclusion network and support program. I would love to be the one who can say, ‘I got cancer. And when I thought, why isn’t there anything for me, I helped do something about it.’”
References
1. American Cancer Society. Cancer Treatment & Survivorship Facts & Figures 2022-2024.
2. American Cancer Society. Global Cancer Facts & Figures 5th Edition, 2022.
