Walk into the lobby of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center any Wednesday morning and the chances are good you’ll be greeted by Pam Germain.
With her warm smile and kind, patient ways, Pam is a fixture at Roswell Park and has been for quite some time, first as an employee in Payor Relations who worked diligently and with conviction to negotiate insurance coverage to help ensure patients had access to the care and services they needed, eventually becoming Vice President of Payor Relations. Then, at the suggestion of her manager at the time, David Christian Hohn, MD, who served as Vice President for Patient Care, she began volunteering once a week at Roswell Park, helping guide patients to their appointments and providing information about the hospital. “Dr. Hohn asked the people working for him to give more to the hospital,” something she took to heart even after she retired from her job.
But Pam also has experienced Roswell Park as a patient. Even then, “this is where I want to be,” she says. While Pam has been treated for skin cancer over the years at Roswell Park, it was new symptoms of numbness, headaches and some trouble moving on the right side of her body, that prompted an MRI scan. She was found to have a rather large tumor called meningioma. The most common type of primary brain tumors, meningiomas develop from the three layers of tissue that surround the brain and spinal cord, called the meninges. Pam’s tumor was typical of many meningiomas in that it was determined to be slow-growing and benign (noncancerous).
However, even benign tumors need expert treatment. As brain tumors grow larger, they can press on areas of the brain and begin to cause symptoms, such as the numbness headaches and mobility issues that Pam had.
Neurosurgeon Andrew Fabiano, MD, MBA, FAANS, Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Roswell Park was able to completely remove the tumor surgically, which improved the numbness and muscle weakness she had been feeling. The odds of her tumor returning is very small, and Pam continues to be monitored with an annual scan to make sure there’s no evidence of a tumor.
He remembers Pam from her time working at Roswell Park, saying they “overlapped for a few years. It’s very fulfilling to be able to help someone who really dedicated themselves to making Roswell a better place, to then be able to give back to them and provide service to them.”
Working hard for patients
Among those who also worked closely with Pam is Robert Fenstermaker, MD, Chair Emeritus of the Department of Neurosurgery. He remembers her tenacity when he brought the Gamma Knife procedure to Roswell Park, a minimally invasive procedure used for treating brain tumors, disorders and metastatic lesions.
“Pam was at the center of those efforts,” Dr. Fenstermaker says. “She would do the negotiations with all the payors for the rates (of coverage). That was really the genesis of a program that’s probably raised many hundreds of millions of dollars for the institute over the last 28 years. I remember Pam would go to the various payors and make presentations in terms of what the procedure was and they had a lot of respect for her.”
As a result of her negotiations and being able to explain the importance of this innovative procedure, he estimates at least 15,000 patients have benefitted from having access to it at Roswell Park.
“I want to thank her for all that she has done for the health of our patients,” Dr. Fenstermaker adds.
Continuing to help
Since 2015, Pam has been a dedicated volunteer at Roswell Park, arriving with a smile every Wednesday morning. “She’s a very patient and good listener. Along with her empathy, and with her being on the other side (as a patient), she understands the stress and the strain that people are under,” says Chris Wesley, Director of Volunteer Services. “She just wants to fill in the gaps whenever she can when she knows the answer, if she can bring them some peace. She’s very selfless like that.”
For Pam, there’s no place she’d rather be than at Roswell Park.
With a degree in business from Harvard, she could have had her pick of places to work, but she got along well with Dr. Hohn from the beginning.
“I’m happy in Buffalo. I feel very blessed about this. I was always happy to be here, from the beginning, and Dr. Hohn started that. He brought me in and this feels like it’s my life.”
Pam has been such a presence in the main lobby, she’s developed friendships with the other volunteers and some patients. It’s the warmth that comes from working in a place where people are in need of compassion and assistance, and Pam is happy to provide both.
"People are so willing to do things for others around here,” she says. “And our doctors are great; they’re trying so hard every day. We try really hard to give people a little extra.”
Editor’s Note: Cancer patient outcomes and experiences may vary, even for those with the same type of cancer. An individual patient’s story should not be used as a prediction of how another patient will respond to treatment. Roswell Park is transparent about the survival rates of our patients as compared to national standards, and provides this information, when available, within the cancer type sections of this website.
