Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:14 — 8.3MB)
Subscribe: RSS
Mike and Joyce speak with Berit Eberhardt, Division head for Kidney Cancer at the House of Life (Das Lebenshaus) in Germany.
Das Lebenshaus is a non-profit organization providing information and support for those affected by rare solid tumors: gastro-intestinal stromal tumors (GIST), Sarcoma, and Kidney Cancer.
Berit studied economics and worked as a project manager in a global information technology company. Her life changed when her boyfriend was diagnosed with kidney cancer. As a caregiver, Berit got in touch with Das Lebenshaus and read and learned a lot about the disease and the various possible treatments. Unfortunately, her boyfriend died just one year after his diagnosis, at the age of 39.
Half a year after his death she began a patient support group in Berlin, with the assistance of Das Lebenshaus. A few months later she became the manager of Kidney Cancer at Das Lebenshaus.
Her knowledge about renal cell carcinoma was strengthened by numerous trainings and seminars, attendance at medical meetings and working closely with kidney cancer specialists – needless to say the Kidney Onc. List and colleagues in the International Kidney Cancer Coalition (IKCC).
In the last 1.5 years she has developed and expanded the kidney cancer section in Das Lebenshaus, establishing a considerable international network. This network helps her to pass on the newest findings and insights about kidney cancer to the German Kidney Cancer patients and caregivers on daily basis.
Update April 2018: Das Lebenshaus is not currently supporting kidney cancer. Berit is now heading a new support organization for urological cancers called Uronauts (Uronauten in German) whose website is under development. Contact them at https://twitter.com/uronauten?lang=en
