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Ellie Waters-Barnes was 14 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer — and it changed the trajectory of her life
NEED TO KNOW
- Ellie Waters-Barnes was inspired to pursue medicine after battling stage 4 cancer as a teenager
- Her treatment included chemotherapy, radiation, and tube feeding, leaving her with lasting physical challenges
- She believes her experience as a patient helps her connect with and advocate for her patients
Ellie Waters-Barnes “never, ever” planned on being a doctor. But a brutal cancer struggle as a young teen changed all that.
She was just 14 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, an aggressive, rare cancer of the soft tissues, Cleveland Clinic explains. “I went from being a very healthy, fit teenage girl to having this very intensive treatment that made me very ill,” Waters-Barnes, now 25, and a graduate from Keele University School of Medicine, told the BBC.
The teen underwent 18 months of treatment — nine months of chemotherapy, 28 sessions of radiation, and then another year of chemotherapy. “I lost lots of weight, lost my hair, I had to be tube fed,” she told the outlet.
Before treatment, “I never, ever considered doing medicine,” she told Keele University in a graduation video. She wanted to “have my own business, earn a lot of money.” But after treatment, she said, “Seeing all these nurses and doctors who looked after me, they became my role models. Once I became better, I actually started thinking about, should I actually become a doctor.”
Waters-Barnes admitted that she sometimes second-guesses her career choice because she faces the lasting impact of her illness. “I sometimes worry if I will not be as good a doctor as some of my colleagues, as the effects of my treatment mean I still struggle physically; I get pains and I get tired more easily,” she told her university.
“But then another doctor said to me that that isn’t what patients care about,” she explained. “They care about your communication, your understanding, and you advocating for them, and I hope it makes me a better doctor for my experiences because I understand what their priorities are.”
She elaborated on that point: “Having been a patient myself, I can understand them. I can understand the priorities, what they want more. Some of the unanswered questions, I feel like I know.”
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“I’m just a big empath now,” added Waters-Barnes, who will next move into her role as a Foundation Doctor (the U.K. equivalent of a medical resident). “I feel their emotions. I feel their pain. That actually can be a bit difficult at times, but actually I think it is a superpower and a strength..”
She continued: “You can’t control what’s happened to you. You can’t control the difficulties that you’re facing. But you can control your attitude towards it. And that’s the most important thing.”
Read the original article on People
