Agoura Hills Cancer Survivor Talks Equity In Health Care

AGOURA HILLS, CA — Woodrow "Woody" Brokenburr was a 9-year-old runner when he found a lump on his left thigh. It took some time for him and his parents to realize it was not just an athletic injury, and they started to grow concerned.

A biopsy revealed Brokenburr had bone cancer, and Brokenburr ultimately had his left leg amputated. His experience receiving treatment in a segregated hospital in central Florida would inspire a lifetime of activism focused on equity in the health care system and outreach to cancer survivors.

Among other things, race, gender identity, disability and income can affect cancer incidence and the death rate in a population group, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Black cancer patients have a higher death rate for many types of cancer than all other racial and ethnic groups, according to the National Cancer Institute.

For example, Black women are more likely than white women to die from breast and cervical cancer, and Black men are twice as likely as white men to die from prostate cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.

There have been multiple instances in Brokenburr's life when he wondered whether race played a role in his medical treatment, he said. But being so young with cancer, Brokenburr's main focus was on survival. He initially did not want to talk about his experience and did not know anyone like him with cancer.

"At that time people, even if they knew they had cancer, they didn't talk about it," Brokenburr said.

But as he got older, Brokenburr used his experience as inspiration to get involved with volunteer work in hospitals and with the American Red Cross. He realized many parts of the health care system lacked representation, and he wanted to change that.

"I never saw people who looked like me who were at the front desk, so my intention was to change that," Brokenburr said.

Brokenburr moved to the Agoura Hills area in 1985 and has been an engaged community member ever since. He served on the Greater Conejo Valley Chamber of Commerce and the cancer outreach committee at Los Robles Hospital in Thousand Oaks and worked closely with Relay for Life in Thousand Oaks.

Relay for Life is an organization that hosts events across the country to raise money for cancer research, outreach and education.

These are just the tip of the iceberg of Brokenburr's volunteer efforts, which also include outreach to aspiring doctors and researchers of color at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Brokenburr would like to see a standard of care for every patient and a comprehensive approach to health care that considers how people enter the health care system, representation among health care professionals and geographical access to care and nutrition.

The research is all there. But health care professionals struggle to act on the treatment gaps that exist based on race and socioeconomic status, Brokenburr said.

"We know what the research says, and the research has indicated a disconnect when it comes to health care delivery," Brokenburr said. "We know better. We know about health disparities, and we know about social determinants of health, so we've got to do better."

Brokenburr has seen some forward movement and creativity as health care inequities take up more space in popular dialogue. He noted Serena Williams speaking out about her childbirth experience and conversations following the murder of George Floyd.

One of Brokenburr's key outreach efforts has been making sure cancer survivors, and especially Black cancer survivors, never feel alone.

His experience as a young boy was frightening and lonely, Brokenburr said. At the time, he was receiving treatment at a segregated hospital in central Florida. And given his mom had nine other children to worry about, Brokenburr felt completely alone.

"I grew up in a segregated environment, and we were in the basement of the hospital called the colored ward. So we were as Black people [relegated] to the basement, and for 30 days during my treatment, I stared at a concrete wall," Brokenburr said.

"I come from a family of 10 children, so when I was hospitalized having the amputation, I felt so alone. My mother ... had three other young kids, so I was pretty much left alone in the hospital."

Brokenburr told his story on Survivorship Today, a platform for cancer survivors to connect with each other and share a nuanced picture of what the disease can look like.

"Whenever I share my story, and I think for every cancer survivor when they share their story, there is an amount of trauma that you re-experience. But on the flip side, there's a whole group of survivors out there, and by sharing our experience collectively, I think there's always some nugget that you can draw from the relaying of those experiences for people," Brokenburr said.