Design Planning

Two years ago today, Pam Taucher passed away following a long fight with breast cancer. Pam was my mother’s best friend and colleague and was like a close aunt to me. Her infectious sense of humor and lovingly brutal honesty are what I cherish on days like today.

I recently interviewed my mother toward better understanding what Pam went through as she received chemotherapy. This little piece of unedited, raw ethnography was conducted for a service design project I’ve embarked on for Memorial Sloan Kettering’s new Brooklyn chemotherapy clinic. With help from some extremely gifted colleagues from the Institute of Design, my hope is to learn from Pam’s experience toward creating a new approach for continuity of care following a course of chemotherapy. And who knows, maybe sharing raw footage like this will help someone on a similar quest.

We love you Pam, ashes scattered in the digital ether.

Tagged: breast cancer, cancer, cancer survivor, chemotherapy, continuity of care, design, ethnography, Institute of Design, joe gray, memorial sloan kettering, pam taucher, Service design