Cancer fighters: UGA grads partner to lead Georgia CORE

3/06/2014

Angie Patterson didn’t just celebrate being a breast cancer survivor. She brought her experiences as a patient and as a corporate manager to Georgia CORE (Center for Oncology Research and Education), which turns 10 this year.

“It completely shaped everything that I knew I wanted to do,” says Patterson (AB ’78), director of Georgia CORE, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2001. “It changed my whole life to give me an opportunity to actually have a job where you follow your passion.”

Relying on her computer science background and 17 years with BellSouth, she began to work with Georgia CORE Chief Executive Officer and President Nancy Paris (AB ’75) to develop innovative ways to support and to show compassion for patients and their families, and to help them make the best decisions about treatment.

A website—GeorgiaCancerInfo.org—includes information on more than 790 oncologists, 595 clinical trials and 285 cancer treatment sites in Georgia. Another CORE-supported effort, the Cancer Patient Navigators of Georgia, connects and educates the 300 navigators who guide cancer patients through their care and help eliminate barriers to treatment, working with the Georgia Society of Clinical Oncology.

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