Some advocacy happens on national television. Some happens on a panel of oncologists. And some happens outside a door that suddenly closed.
This week, I’m highlighting Megan-Claire J. Chase, Kelly Mellott, and Rachel Giles. Their posts come from very different places: a morning show and a magazine feature, an invitation to one of the biggest breast cancer meetings in the world, and a protest at a major oncology congress in Madrid.
But they kept bringing me back to the same idea from last week. Getting into the room matters. So does what you’re able to do once you’re there, and what happens when you’re kept out.
Megan-Claire J. Chase: Saying the quiet parts out loud
Megan-Claire had a big October. She shared that she was on Good Morning America talking about “some of the quiet parts out loud about the breast cancer experience.” A few weeks later, she was featured in ESSENCE.
The ESSENCE feature is titled “Surviving Breast Cancer Is Not A Finish Line,” and that’s the heart of what she’s been saying. She was diagnosed at 39 and went through 16 rounds of chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation, often while working full-time. Now, a decade later, she still lives with fatigue, health anxiety, and grief over what cancer took, including her fertility.
In her post about the feature, she wrote:
“Survivorship isn’t just about pink ribbons and inspirational stories. It’s complicated, sometimes downright HARD, and we deserve space to talk about ALL of it!!!!”
She also spoke directly to Black women and the expectation that strength means suffering in silence:
“Sometimes, we just need permission and support to be HUMAN.”
That’s why I chose Megan-Claire this week. We often treat the end of treatment as the end of the story. She’s using national platforms to say that for many survivors, it isn’t. And she’s making room for people to be tired, scared, angry, and hopeful without having to perform strength first.
One line from the ESSENCE article stayed with me: “You do not have to perform strength to deserve care.”
Connect with Megan-Claire on LinkedIn
Kelly Mellott: Taking the seat she’s worked to create
Kelly closed out Breast Cancer Awareness Month with news she said she’s “still a little overwhelmed” by. She’s been invited to join the 2026 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium as the survivor and patient advocate on the Molecular Tumor Board.
She’ll sit alongside oncologists and researchers from institutions including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Dana-Farber, and MD Anderson for a live discussion of complex clinical cases and molecular treatment decisions.
For Kelly, it’s personal. She was diagnosed with hereditary breast cancer at 32. On December 6, she’ll mark eight years since her bilateral mastectomy. Four days later, she’ll be on that panel.
“What a full-circle moment.”
She described the mission behind her career this way: “ensuring patients have a seat at the table and are empowered to be active partners in decisions about their care.” Now she’s the one taking that seat.
I chose Kelly because of how she’s approaching it. She isn’t treating the invitation as recognition alone. She called it “a responsibility I do not take lightly,” and said she’s there representing her fellow survivors and “the patients whose lives are at the center of these discussions.”
A tumor board is where treatment decisions are talked through case by case. Having a patient advocate on that panel says something about whose perspective belongs in those conversations. According to SABCS, 23 patient advocates will serve as panelists and speakers this year.
If you’ll be in San Antonio, her session is Thursday, December 10, from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. CT in Stars at Night 1-2 (SABCS program).
Connect with Kelly on LinkedIn
Rachel Giles: “We are there to work too!”
Rachel’s post was short and direct.
“Really???”
She shared a photo of patient advocates protesting at the ESMO Congress in Madrid, the European Society for Medical Oncology’s annual meeting. She noted that more and more patients are protesting, “but with more and more security getting in our way.”
“We are not pleased with this trend to exclude patient advocates. We are there to work too!”
Here’s what was behind it. According to a statement from WECAN, the Workgroup of European Cancer Patient Advocacy Networks, ESMO told registered patient advocates less than two weeks before the congress that people who aren’t licensed prescribers would have no access to the exhibition area. ESMO pointed to EU pharmaceutical advertising rules and industry codes as they’re applied in Spain.
WECAN said the patient community wasn’t consulted, and that advocates had exhibition access at ESMO for more than a decade, including the last time the congress was held in Madrid in 2023. It also described what that space is used for: meetings with medical affairs and clinical development teams about unmet needs, trial design, and patient involvement. Some of those meetings were canceled or moved to cafés outside the venue.
Rachel knows that work well. According to Patvocates, where she’s Patient Engagement Director, she comes from a family with an inherited tumor syndrome, has been advocating for people with inherited kidney cancer since 2003, and led the International Kidney Cancer Coalition from 2010 to 2024.
I chose Rachel because her post shows the other side of the seat at the table. Advocates can be invited, accredited, and ready to work, and still be kept away from where many of the conversations happen. Her hashtag says it plainly: #patientadvocatesINnotOUT.
Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn
Who gets to be in the room
Megan-Claire is making sure the hard parts of survivorship get heard in places that usually tell a simpler story. Kelly is taking a seat on a panel where treatment decisions are discussed. Rachel is speaking up when advocates who came to work were shut out of the room.
Together, they left me with a few questions:
Who’s in the room when decisions are made about patients? Who decides that? And when the door closes, who notices?
Those are worth asking wherever we do this work.
Every Sunday evening, I share three people whose posts give me something to think about in advocacy. Subscribe free to Advocacy at Work to receive the next edition in your inbox.