Solo Episode: What “Evidence-Based Care” Really Means: Bridging Science, Trauma, and Healing Hereditary Cancer
Release Date: 11/06/2025
Solo Episode: Living with Hereditary Cancer and Risk in a Loud World
Walking the Genetic Line
Host: Sara Champie, LCSW Theme: Navigating medical vulnerability, global instability, and nervous system overwhelm during hereditary cancer risk and treatment. Episode summary What happens when your body is healing, your life is medically uncertain, and the world around you feels like it’s unraveling? In this solo episode, therapist Sara Champie explores a reality many people navigating hereditary cancer risk quietly experience: the nervous system strain of managing personal medical vulnerability while absorbing the constant noise of global crisis. When surgery, treatment, or high-stakes...
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Katie McMurray: The Emotional Impact of Grief, Sisterhood, and Preventative Surgery
Walking the Genetic Line
Guest: Katie McMurray Theme: BRCA1, sisterhood, developmental trauma, and choosing preventative surgery in young adulthood Episode summary When Katie was 17, she lost her mother to breast cancer. Years later, genetic testing confirmed what she had long suspected: she carries a BRCA1 mutation. In this episode, Katie and Sara Champie explore what happens when grief resurfaces through genetic testing — how identity shifts, how fear and agency intertwine, and how the loss of a parent shapes medical decision-making. At 25, during the height of COVID, Katie chose preventative mastectomy surgery....
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Ingrid Nishimoto, LCSW: Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome and Intergenerational Emotional Inheritance
Walking the Genetic Line
Guest: Ingrid Nishimoto, LCSW Theme: Inherited Narratives—Moving Beyond the Parent’s Story to Claim Your Own Episode Summary When Ingrid Nishimoto was diagnosed with Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome at age 17, she wasn't just handed a medical management plan; she was handed a mirror of her father’s life and early death. In this profound conversation with Sara Champie, LCSW, Ingrid explores the "Time Collapse" that occurs when a genetic diagnosis makes the past and future converge in the present. As a fellow psychotherapist, Ingrid deconstructs the emotional burden of living past the age a parent...
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Sara Kavanaugh: From Health Anxiety to Empowerment—Transforming Hereditary Cancer Risk into Healing
Walking the Genetic Line
Guest: Sara Kavanaugh Theme: Living as a Previvor—Agency, Advocacy, and Reframing Anxiety After Genetic Testing Episode summary When Sara Kavanaugh learned she carried mutations in her MSH6 (Lynch syndrome) and Check2 genes, she moved from decades of health anxiety—and ambiguous uncertainty—to a new sense of empowerment and structure. In this dialogue with psychotherapist and fellow traveler Sara Champie, Sara shares how learning her genetic status fundamentally changed her identity, led her to fierce self-advocacy, and inspired her to create the Positive Gene Podcast—a resource and...
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Sara Kourouma: From Childhood Loss to Empowerment, Creating Community for BRCA Carriers
Walking the Genetic Line
Guest: Sara Kourouma Theme: Loss, agency, and community—the emotional journey of living with BRCA2 Episode summary When Sara Kourouma discovered she carried the BRCA2 mutation as a young adult—after losing her mother to breast cancer at age 10—she was thrust into a landscape defined by uncertainty, risk, and the weight of generational loss. In this episode, Sara Champie sits down with Sara Kourouma, a clinical social worker serving New York and Texas, to explore how privilege, access, grief, and human connection have shaped her journey through surveillance, multiple prophylactic...
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Beth Martinetti: Family, Fertility, and Identity after Hereditary Cancer Diagnosis
Walking the Genetic Line
Episode Summary When Beth Martinetti—Pilates instructor, mother of three, and lifelong student of her own body—discovered multiple genetic mutations at 45, it was the latest chapter in a lifetime shaped by both visible and invisible challenges. Beth shares her journey from adolescent injury and Ehlers-Danlos diagnosis, through complicated pregnancies, to a midlife cascade: mysterious symptoms, pivotal encounters with validating doctors, and ultimately, the discovery that she carries BRCA1, CHEK2, and a variant in BARD1. Still in the thick of surgical recovery, Beth invites us into her...
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Dr. Corinne Menn: The Truth About Hormone Replacement for BRCA Carriers and Previvers
Walking the Genetic Line
Guest: Dr. Corinne Menn Theme: Claiming agency in hereditary cancer risk, surgical menopause, and a new era of HRT care Episode summary When Dr. Corinne Menn—board certified OB/GYN, Menopause Society certified practitioner, 23+ year breast cancer survivor, and BRCA2 carrier—joins us, she brings unparalleled lived and clinical expertise to walking the genetic line. In this conversation, Dr. Corinne Menn shares her deeply personal journey: breast cancer at 28, the loss of her mother to ovarian cancer, and the years navigating her own genetic risk and premature menopause. Together, we...
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Martha Kaiser: From Melanoma Diagnosis to Genetic Discovery – A Journey of Agency and Ancestry
Walking the Genetic Line
Guest: Martha Kaiser Theme: Walking with CDKN2A, Ancestral Discovery, and Agency in Rare Genetic Mutations Episode Summary When Martha Kaiser discovered she carries the rare CDKN2A gene mutation—known for elevating risks of melanoma and pancreatic cancer—her journey shifted from uncertainty, loss, and family trauma to active agency and deep exploration. In this conversation, she shares not only the medical dimensions of living with a lesser-known mutation, but how intergenerational silence, gut intuition, and the drive to protect her children led her to become both a patient advocate and a...
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Solo Episode: What “Evidence-Based Care” Really Means: Bridging Science, Trauma, and Healing Hereditary Cancer
Walking the Genetic Line
🧬 Episode Summary In this solo episode, host Sara Champie, LCSW, explores one of the most common phrases in medicine and psychology—evidence-based care—and what it really means when we apply it to lived human experience. Sara walks us through the two definitions that often get conflated: evidence-based research, which measures outcomes in controlled studies, and evidence-based practice, which integrates science, clinical wisdom, and a client’s unique values and culture. She then bridges these frameworks through the lens of hereditary cancer risk, showing how the most profound healing...
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Katherine Lewandowski: Reclaiming Self After Preventative Surgery
Walking the Genetic Line
Guest: Katherine Lewandowski Theme: Choosing care, surviving change, and finding a stronger self after prophylactic surgery Episode summary When Katherine learned at 43 that she carried BRCA2—shortly after her father’s metastatic prostate cancer diagnosis—she moved from shock and shame to decisive action. In this conversation, she shares how grief, meticulous research, and a values-aligned care team led her through prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with DIEP flap reconstruction and surgical menopause—and why she now feels more like herself: stronger, clearer, and more alive. We...
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In this solo episode, host Sara Champie, LCSW, explores one of the most common phrases in medicine and psychology—evidence-based care—and what it really means when we apply it to lived human experience.
Sara walks us through the two definitions that often get conflated: evidence-based research, which measures outcomes in controlled studies, and evidence-based practice, which integrates science, clinical wisdom, and a client’s unique values and culture. She then bridges these frameworks through the lens of hereditary cancer risk, showing how the most profound healing often happens in the spaces that data cannot measure—connection, attunement, grief, and identity.
Through stories of life after surgery and survivorship, Sara invites us to consider that “the connection is the treatment.” Science can guide us, but relationships are what truly heal.
💬 Key Themes
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What evidence-based care really means in medicine vs. psychology
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The therapeutic alliance as the strongest predictor of healing outcomes
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Why relational safety can’t be randomized or quantified
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The emotional aftermath of “successful” medical interventions
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Bridging the gap between surgical recovery and emotional integration
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How research funding, politics, and systems of oppression shape what gets labeled “evidence-based”
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Integrating science and relationship for whole-person healing
🩺 Featured Quote
“Even when data says you’re fine, the surgery was perfect, the treatment worked — the heart may still need time to catch up.”
🕊️ Takeaway
Evidence-based care gives us structure and safety, but healing happens when we bring our full selves into relationship—when the nervous system learns that safety is possible again. True integration happens not only through survival, but through reconnection with our bodies, our loved ones, and our sense of belonging in the world.
🧠 Resources Mentioned
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American Psychological Association: Definition of Evidence-Based Practice
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“10 Questions to Ask Yourself After a Genetic Mutation Diagnosis” — free download at sarachampieLCSW.com
🌿 Connect with Sara
Follow along on Instagram and TikTok @facetherisktogether
Learn more about individual and group support at sarachampieLCSW.com
🔖 Hashtags
#WalkingTheGeneticLine #EvidenceBasedCare #TraumaInformedTherapy #CancerSurvivorship #HereditaryCancer #BRCA #DepthPsychotherapy #WholePersonHealing #TherapeuticAlliance #IntergenerationalHealing #BetweenTheScans