Physician and Lung Cancer Advocate Shares Personal Story

Sydney Barned, MD, is a stage 4 lung cancer survivor and advocate. Dr. Barned graduated from the University of The West Indies Faculty of Medical Sciences Jamaica in 2012 and is currently a practicing internal medicine specialist at Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Maryland. It was during her year of medical residency when she noticed decreased exercise endurance and began wheezing, which later resulted in her lung cancer diagnosis.

Sydney became an advocate to dispel the stigma that lung cancer is a smoker’s disease. She wants to increase awareness about the need for more lung cancer research, get rid of the stigma, and obtain research funding on the same level as breast, ovarian and other women’s cancers to educate others that lung cancer kills more people than those cancers combined.

Dr. Barned is a lung cancer survivor turned advocate. Her story from diagnosis to advocacy is one of honesty and unwavering hope. Through her personal experiences and powerful insights, she sheds light on the challenges and triumphs she faced throughout her lung cancer journey.

Black Health Matters: First, tell us a bit about how you were diagnosed with lung cancer and what that experience was like for you.

Dr. Barned: So, in February 2016, I realized that I was having some shortness of breath with my exercise routines. I have always been very active in various activities, so when I noticed that my exercise tolerance was diminished and I was struggling during my 5K runs, I knew something was wrong. I went and got an x-ray and was initially diagnosed with walking pneumonia.

I later started experiencing a chronic cough, so I decided to see a lung specialist (pulmonologist). The x-ray was repeated, and it had improved but was still abnormal. I was then diagnosed with hyperactive airway disease and prescribed a steroid. My symptoms continued to worsen so I saw a different pulmonologist. I completed another x-ray and requested a CT scan which showed a mass that was compressing my airway.

After doing biopsies, bronchoscopies, and various other tests, I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. As a physician who was active, had never smoked, and was pretty obnoxious about telling people to stop smoking because of the risk of lung cancer, the irony was shocking.

Black Health Matters: Can you share more about your advocacy work?

Dr. Barned: I have dedicated myself to educating others on the fact that anyone with lungs can get lung cancer, and that if you have certain risk factors to request screening for lung cancer. Understanding the criteria is something that we need to encourage the public to do and to make sure that if they have certain risk factors or present with certain symptoms that they need to insist that they get the test necessary to make sure that lung cancer is not caught in its later stages.

Black Health Matters: What’s one piece of advice you would share with someone who is considering requesting additional testing?

Dr. Barned: Early detection is very curative. The earlier the cancer is detected, the earlier you can begin treatment.

Black Health Matters: Thank you for sharing your story. Any final thoughts?

Dr. Barned: Though lung cancer survival rates are much lower at later stages, getting diagnosed at stage 4 is one of the reasons why lung cancer advocacy is so important to me. I’m so happy to be a source of education and to tell my story.

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