Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Cancer research is common and has been conducted from many angles. This is likely because more than 14 million people across the world are diagnosed with cancer every year and 8 million people die from the disease (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015). While chemotherapy and radiation are common treatments, one form of cancer treatment that is becoming increasingly popular is Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM).When one of my family members was diagnosed with cancer several years ago, I became interested in a multitude of cancer treatments. While my main focus was the health of my family member, I became increasingly interested in how the medical industry communicated CAM use, whether positively, negatively, or at all. I wanted to know more about how medical practitioners were communicating different treatment plans to patients and if those plans encompassed both medical and CAM use. This interest is leading me to conduct a research paper analyzing qualitative data and focusing primarily on a context analysis of how medical practitioners are communicating cancer treatment. Through this research, I plan to answer the question: How do medical practitioners communicate holistic treatments (CAM use) to cancer patients?