What a Summer Volunteer Position with Binaytara Taught Aanshi Deep About Equitable Cancer Care

A Mission-Backed Internship

Before Aanshi Deep spent her summer volunteering with the Marketing and Communications Department at Binaytara, she had done two short-term volunteer stints for the nonprofit’s conferences in Seattle. That was enough to stoke her curiosity.

“I liked the focus on accessibility and expanding access to care, especially in underserved areas,” Deep said. “I feel like being able to access healthcare is a basic necessity, especially when it comes to cancer care.”

Finding the summer before she started college open, she took the plunge: “When I had the opportunity to volunteer, I thought it would be a good thing for me to do.”

Deep found herself volunteering with the Marketing and Communications Department, where she helped promote oncology conferences, wrote captions for social media posts, and corresponded with oncologist conference attendees, among a host of other day-to-day tasks across the department.

Her favorite task—and the most meaningful— was writing articles for Binaytara’s oncology educational platform, The Cancer News. Working on articles allowed her to research, write, and “learn about different aspects of cancer care that I hadn’t really thought about before,” Deep explained.

She started with an article on how sleep affects one’s risk of developing cancer, before pivoting to the socioeconomic side of the disease: financial toxicity, or the significant monetary burden that comes with diagnosis.

“It’s not really something I would have thought about when thinking about cancer care,” Deep said: “the whole financial aspect of it. Honestly, I was a little bit shocked when I learned about it. It also helped me understand more about Binaytara’s purpose. When I saw how high the costs of cancer care can be, it made more sense to me why people have difficulty accessing it.”

Pending medical review from oncologists, Deep’s articles will be available on The Cancer News soon.

Onwards and Upwards: Healthcare in Good Hands

Although inspired by Binaytara’s cancer care accessibility programming, Deep, who wants to go into healthcare, found herself drawn to the CME side of the organization.

“I feel like it’s really cool that Binaytara is able to merge multiple things into one—letting doctors get their CME credits while also giving them the opportunity to meet other physicians and pharmacists, network with each other, hear presentations, and stay up to date with what other people are researching,” Deep said. Plus, the conferences were surprisingly connected to the advocacy side of oncology she had been learning about. “When I volunteered at the conferences, I got to sit in on some of the presentations, so I think that was my first real exposure to what oncologists are currently doing to expand access to care.”

Now, Deep is off to UC Davis to study biomedical engineering, pursuing the pre-med track. We asked if we might see her on the other side of the speaker’s podium at a conference one day, sharing her own research. She’s leaving her options open—but it’s far from off the table.

“Hopefully!” she said.

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