Nearly five-thousand Montanans are diagnosed with cancer every year.
That’s according to figures from the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services.
And an estimated 42-thousand cancer survivors are living in the state right now.
But, even if they are free from the disease, many of these survivors are still dealing with long-lasting impacts from the treatments which saved their lives.
Dr. Julie Silver is a rehabilitation physician and associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
She believes the medical community at large is not recognizing the need for therapy to help survivors recover from harsh cancer treatments.
In this feature interview with Capitol Reporter Dan Boyce, Dr. Silver talks about a program she started to help reverse this trend and the two Montana hospitals that are implementing it.
She says she became particularly interested in the issue after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003.