BETA - What should I know when first diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia?

What should I know when first diagnosed with AML? When we meet a patient who is first diagnosed, I think the most important thing that we want them to know is that as their healthcare team, we're right there beside them. We understand it's a very scary diagnosis and we understand that words like chemotherapy and leukemia instill a lot of uncertainty and fear. I think it's very important to know that a patient trusts us and that we trust them. That's the foundation of the healthcare and patient relationship. We need to know exactly what they want to get out of treatment because we can treat acute myeloid leukemia several different ways now, fortunately, and we want to know what their goals are before getting started because treatment is rough and leukemia is very rough, specifically acute myeloid leukemia. Having a good understanding of where the patient's at and what they want to get out of life can kind of give us a sense of just how aggressive they want us to be in treating their cancer. What I would want a patient who's first diagnosed with AML to know is that we can help you. I think there's a lot of fear about such a rare thing. They've never heard anyone around them having an acute leukemia or if they had a family member with it years ago, so much has changed in the treatment that my first thing I want people to know is that we can help you. I've never met a person that we haven't been able to help and even if the helping is just the knowing, so yes, we can help you and we can find a way forward. The way forward and the journey is not always easy. It does come with difficulties and it is a long journey, but this is why we're here. We desperately want people to know that it is not a diagnosis that we can't do anything about. There's always something that we can help people with, so that's what I would want people to know. I also would want people to know that we understand that when we meet you, you have to trust us a lot. There's a whole lot of trust that comes into the relationship when we tell someone they have acute myeloid leukemia. We have to tell them that they have to step back from their life a little bit so that we can get them better and that can be really difficult. So just trust as much as you can and know that we're here to offer some level of hope.