The Cancer Nation Virtual Summit will focus on what survivors, and their families need to improve their quality of life and fill the gaps in care. Everyone deserves whole person cancer care that addresses the body, the mind, and daily life.
Learn more about:
- Improving sleep.
- Addressing mental health.
- Exploring relationships and intimacy.
- Diving deep on physical health.
Whole person care is at the heart of this virtual summit, and we hope you will join us from the comfort of your own home.
Virtual Summit Agenda
Note: All times are Eastern Time. Session times are approximate and subject to change.
| 1:00 PM | Opening Session
Shelley Fuld Nasso, MPP |
| 1:05 PM | Beyond “Eat Healthy and Exercise:” Your Manual for Life After Cancer
Sami Mansfield, ACSM-CET, PN1 Survivorship doesn’t begin when treatment ends, it begins the day you’re diagnosed. And from that day on, most people get the same advice: “eat healthy and exercise.” It’s well-meaning and almost useless. No one hands you a manual for the body you’re living in now, whether you’re newly diagnosed, in the middle of treatment, or living with metastatic disease. In this session, exercise oncology and lifestyle medicine specialist Sami Mansfield hands you that manual. Lifestyle medicine rests on six pillars — how you move, how you eat, how you sleep, how you manage stress, how you connect, and the daily habits that support your health. These aren’t things to put off until you’re “done” — they help you tolerate treatment, protect your strength, and help you live fully, even with cancer. During this session, you will also be able to take a quick habit self-assessment to see where your habits line up with what the science says matters most: how you feel, function, and live at every stage. |
| 1:30 PM | Sleep and Cancer: What to Know, What to Do
Eric S. Zhou, PhD A practical conversation about why sleep problems are so common among cancer patients and survivors, and what patients and caregivers can do about them. This session will help attendees better understand sleep changes during and after cancer, recognize when sleep problems deserve more attention, and learn realistic strategies to improve their sleep and health. |
| 2:00 PM | Break |
| 2:15 PM | Writing Workshop
Laurel Braitman, PhD Through interactive writing exercises, Dr. Braitman will invite participants to use metaphor, sensory detail, and vulnerability to put words to complex emotions like joy, grief, and the cancer experience. Attendees will craft their own poetic reflections and write transformative letters or messages as metaphors for life and survival. Dr. Braitman will make the case that storytelling is a public health tool, a way to humanize data, and will invite participants to raise their voices through writing, advocacy, and creative expression. This session celebrates the power of personal narrative to build empathy, drive change, and find meaning in life’s hardest moments. |
| 3:15 PM | Redefining Intimacy In Cancer Care: Beyond Sexual Function
Claire Rumore Cancer can change far more than sexual function. It can reshape how we see ourselves, experience our bodies, relate to those we love, and connect with the world around us. Yet conversations about intimacy in cancer care often remain narrowly focused on sex function and wellness alone. In this engaging and thought-provoking session, Claire Rumore invites patients, partners, caregivers, survivors, and healthcare professionals to explore a broader, more compassionate understanding of intimacy, one that includes identity, body image, communication, touch, pleasure, emotional connection, relationships, and beyond. Attendees will leave with a new perspective on intimacy and practical insights for fostering connection and supporting this piece of whole-person care throughout the cancer experience. |
Speaker Biographies
Click a speaker name to read more.
Laurel Braitman, PhD
Bestselling Author
Director of Writing and Storytelling
Medical Humanities and the Arts Program
Stanford School of Medicine
Laurel Braitman is a bestselling author, speaker, educator, and a trailblazer in the field of medical storytelling. Laurel inspires healing and mental wellness through her books and her work as the Director of Writing and Storytelling at the Stanford School of Medicine. She is author of the memoir What Looks Like Bravery: An Epic Journey Through Loss to Love (Simon & Schuster) and the popular science book Animal Madness. She holds a PhD in Science, Technology and Society from MIT and is the founder of Writing Medicine, a global community of writing healthcare professionals. Her work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, Good Morning America and Al Jazeera. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, on Radiolab, in The Wall Street Journal, Wired, National Geographic and other publications.
Laurel lives on her family’s citrus and avocado ranch in Southern California.
Sami Mansfield, ACSM-CET, PN1
Founder
Cancer Wellness for Life & MyLifestyle Shift
Sami Mansfield believes cancer survivorship shouldn’t end at the last treatment — that’s where real living begins. A lifestyle medicine and exercise oncology consultant since 2003, she founded Cancer Wellness for Life to help survivors and their clinicians turn the pillars of lifestyle medicine — movement, nutrition, sleep, stress, and connection — into daily habits that actually stick. A contributing author to the ASCO Exercise, Nutrition, and Weight Management Guidelines and chair of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s Cancer Member Interest Group, she’s built globally-reaching programs like weBuild and My Lifestyle Shift. Her message is simple: how you live is medicine, and everyone deserves access to the prescription.
Claire Rumore
Cancer & Intimacy Educator and Consultant
CancerAndIntimacy.com
Claire Rumore is a cancer and intimacy educator, consultant, and founder of Cancer And Intimacy, where she is helping redefine how intimacy is understood and supported throughout the cancer experience. Drawing from more than two decades of work in body-based practice, intimacy education, and relational health, Claire bridges the gap between the physical, emotional, relational, and existential changes that often accompany cancer.
Her work focuses on expanding the conversation beyond sexual function alone to include identity, body image, communication, connection, pleasure, self-worth, and the many ways people experience intimacy throughout treatment and survivorship. She believes that intimacy is not a luxury or an afterthought, but an essential dimension of whole-person cancer care.
In addition to developing educational resources for patients, survivors, partners, and caregivers, Claire collaborates with healthcare organizations to integrate intimacy-informed care into clinical practice through education, systems thinking, and implementation strategies. Her work aims to make conversations about intimacy more accessible, more compassionate, and more practical for patients as well as healthcare professionals.
As both a cancer survivor and educator, Claire brings a deeply human perspective to one of the most overlooked aspects of cancer care, helping people reconnect with themselves and those they love.
Eric S. Zhou, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Harvard Medical School
Dr. Eric Zhou is on faculty in the Division of Sleep Medicine and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on how we can better understand and treat sleep disorders in the oncology setting. This work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, American Cancer Society, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, private foundations, and industry. His research has been published in journals such as JAMA Psychiatry, Cancer, and SLEEP. Dr. Zhou has served as a consultant for organizations such as Samsung and the Goldie Hawn Foundation to provide sleep expertise. For his training, Dr. Zhou completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA and residency at Brown University Alpert Medical School in Providence, RI. He received a B.Sc. (Integrated Sciences and Psychology) from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC and an M.S. and Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology, Health Division) from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, FL.
Shelley Fuld Nasso, MPP
CEO
Cancer Nation
Shelley Fuld Nasso, MPP, is CEO of Cancer Nation—the voice of the 18 million Americans living with, through, and beyond cancer. Under her leadership, Cancer Nation (formerly the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship) pushes for bold policy change to ensure every survivor has the right to not just survive—but thrive. From Capitol Hill to cancer centers, Shelley elevates survivor voices and demands care that actually works for the people living it.
A defining part of her work is helping survivors and caregivers find their voice in the democratic process—whether it’s their first visit to Capitol Hill or telling their story to someone in power. Through advocacy training and deep community-building, she empowers people to speak out, be heard, and help shape the policies that shape their lives.
Before joining Cancer Nation in 2013, she led public policy initiatives at Susan G. Komen. She holds degrees from Rice University and the Harvard Kennedy School. Shelley’s advocacy is deeply personal—rooted in love for her friend Dr. Brent Whitworth, a compassionate physician who died of cancer at 43, and in solidarity with countless others in her life affected by cancer.
She lives in Maryland with her husband and three sons. When not pushing for a cure for care, she’s likely found on a paddleboard, in a yoga class, or solving a crossword.
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