Two years after she graduated as a general practitioner, Dr Latoya Gooding requested to join the Oncology Department of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) and the suffering of cancer victims propelled her to do more than treat their symptoms and help to make their stay at the institution bearable.
She joined with like-minded persons to start the Giving Hope Foundation which today, she boasts, has not only helped to raise awareness so that women and men do not wait until they are sick to be tested for various cancers, but has also helped children who lost their parents to cancer and suicide.
Dr Gooding’s move to the Oncology Department might be due to the fact that her grandfather passed away in 2009 from prostate cancer. He died without receiving the requisite treatment and this would have also been foremost on her mind when she mobilised to form the foundation.
