S6E9: Breast Cancer PSA: Patients Need Emotional Support

In this episode, Beth and Jamie sit down with Dr. Renata Sledge — who, for the record, thinks her own name sounds like a supervillain — an assistant professor of social work and licensed clinical social worker whose research focuses on the deeply human side of healthcare.Renata spent 15 years watching patients surrounded by doctors, family, and friends who all wanted to help — and yet still feeling profoundly alone. That gap between wanting to be supported and actually feeling it sent her back to school for her PhD, and it's the question at the heart of this conversation.Together, they unpack:Why "shared decision-making" in medicine is treated as a single moment when it actually unfolds over weeks — and how that misunderstanding leaves patients strandedHow women are socialized to mute their own needs before cancer, and why that doesn't just disappear after a diagnosisThe invisible weight of what patients carry into a diagnosis — rocky marriages, job loss, grief — and how that shapes every treatment decisionWhy the healthcare system structurally fails the patients who need it most, and who has to step in to fill that gapThe power and limits of self-advocacy, especially when someone's whole life has taught them that asking for help leads nowhereJamie gets personal about her experience as a lifelong people-pleaser who had to go back and re-advocate for herself mid-treatment. Beth reflects on the "silent strugglers" — the women who look resilient on the outside while quietly falling apart — and how even her own nurse navigator didn't see it coming.This is a conversation about what it would look like if the system actually treated the whole person, not just the disease.Learn more or support Faith Through Fire at faiththroughfire.orgConnect with Renata Sledge: https://www.umsl.edu/sswpbs/social-work/directory/sledge-renata.htmlCompanies mentioned in this episode:Faith Through FireThrivent Gateway Financial Group