Philanthropy Fuels Valuable Breast Cancer Programs

Lillie Shockney was 12 when she first visited The Johns Hopkins Hospital, to have her appendix removed. Her nurse took her for a wheelchair ride one day to the Billings Administration Building to see the statue of Jesus Christ. It was there that Shockney vowed to return. “I said, ‘One day, I’m going to be a Johns Hopkins nurse,’” she recalls. She kept that promise when she joined The Johns Hopkins Hospital as a registered nurse in 1983, and 33 years later, she’s still here.

Most recently, Shockney became the first nurse at Johns Hopkins to reach the top of the academic ladder as a full professor. In addition, she serves as administrative director of the Johns Hopkins Breast Center and cancer survivorship programs, and holds the title of University Distinguished Service Professor of Breast Cancer.

Shockney says much of her success wouldn’t have been possible without generous donations. “My track for faculty promotion has been focused on clinical program building and education, which are primarily supported by donors,” she says.

Since 1997, Shockney has developed and grown a group of survivor volunteers into a dedicated force for patients with breast cancer and their families, providing one-on-one peer support for newly diagnosed patients, as well as retreats for metastatic patients and their significant others/caregivers.

In 1998, she launched a navigation service that helps identify barriers people have to receiving medical care and became known as the founder of oncology nurse navigation. And in the past few years, she’s helped raise money for a breast surgical oncology fellowship that is training the next generation of superspecialists.

“A lot of these things cost money,” she says. “What we have budgets for is the manpower for diagnosis and treatment resources, not these other programs and services that also require a funding source. That’s where philanthropy comes in.”

She’s now collaborating with David Euhus, director of breast surgery, on the Breast Cancer Quality of Life Database project. Because Johns Hopkins offers breast services in five hospitals and has nine surgeons across the health system, it’s hard to know if patients at each location are receiving the same level of care.

“Our goal is to be able to provide the same consistent, very high-quality breast care at all five centers,” says Euhus. Once enough data have been collected, “we can tell patients what our outcomes are. Most places don’t have that.”

And, as with many projects, the database is being funded by donors.

“Federal funding through grants is getting harder to acquire, and it takes an enormous amount of time. I got to the point where I just couldn’t devote that kind of time anymore,” says Euhus. “I still have projects I think will improve patient care. But without a champion behind me, they just can’t happen.”

Shockney emphasizes that donations of any size make a big difference. “When passion and purpose come together,” she says, “extraordinary things will always happen.”