Renee Botello, MSc: Empowering GO2’s Spanish-speaking Community

Meet Renee Botello, MSc, GO2 for Lung Cancer’s treatment and trials navigator and one of the faces behind our HelpLine. She is also responsible for Nuestra Gente, a health education initiative that provides relevant and culturally significant information about lung cancer to Hispanic/LatinX communities in the United States. This includes connecting with people through a Spanish-speaking lung cancer navigator to answer any questions about their diagnosis and help them understand their treatment options, including clinical trials.

We connected with Botello on her background, what drew her to work at GO2 for Lung Cancer, and why Nuestra Gente is so critical to Spanish-speaking people impacted by lung cancer.

Tell us about your background. 

I have always been interested in pursuing a career in healthcare, with the original plan being to apply to medical school. This kind of changed when I was studying for my master’s degree. Throughout my studies, I felt that something was missing from the career path I was working towards. I realized I wanted to not just care for people through medicine but change how care is approached. I wanted to work towards applying that personalized reach and understanding of each individual’s culture, language, and other factors that may affect the way that they seek and receive information while helping them advocate for their care.

Why did you want to work in lung cancer? 

While taking into consideration what I learned when getting my master’s, I decided to focus my professional search on conducting work that incorporated person-to-person assistance of care while also helping people advocate for the type of treatment they want. This is where GO2 for Lung Cancer and the Nuestra Gente program drew me in. Both the organization and the program fostered so much growth and connection. That was exactly what I was looking for. It also allowed the opportunity for me to continue learning. Before GO2, I did not personally have lung cancer touch my life, and I did start with little to no knowledge of what lung cancer is, but again, that is the fun thing about this job; you continue to learn more every day.

Why was the Nuestra Gente program developed? 

We developed the program to address the fact that there is a severe lack of lung cancer resources in Spanish. From personal experience and voiced concern from the Hispanic/LatinX community, the translation from one language to another may not relay the information in a way that is accessible and easily understood. The issue with that is that if one does not understand the information being shared or cannot access it, then that is an extra challenge to fully grasp and advocate for what a person needs (a treatment or a test, for example). This is what the program aims to do: create and provide literacy-relevant and culturally significant materials about lung cancer to the Hispanic/LatinX communities in the United States.

Why is this program so important? 

This project is important because its goal is to empower and educate Hispanic/LatinX patients and caregivers through culturally sensitive and appropriate educational materials. By creating engaging resources that show the importance of early lung cancer diagnosis, treatment in a culturally sensitive way, and a wide array of lung cancer topics, we meet the needs voiced by the Hispanic/LatinX community. The program also aims to expand GO2’s patient and caregiver resources to reach more LatinX/Hispanic people impacted by lung cancer, including the Lung Cancer Living Room Expert Speaker Series, LungMATCH treatment and trial navigation, and our toll-free HelpLine.

What benefits does the program provide to the Hispanic/LatinX lung cancer community? 

By providing education and access to resources in an innovative and more approachable manner, Nuestra Gente offers people impacted by lung cancer resources that they would not have access to otherwise. Given that many educational materials currently available fail to meet the culturally sensitive and literacy-appropriate educational needs of Hispanic/Latinx communities, we must go beyond simply translating materials into Spanish. Our focus is on providing appropriate health education resources to help people impacted by lung cancer. Providing these resources will empower, educate, and bring hope to Hispanic/LatinX communities.