When Erica Nowell tells her patients that she knows what they’re going through, she means it. Nowell first walked MD Anderson’s halls when she was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma in 2005, but she recently returned. This time as a nurse practitioner.

“It feels very surreal to be back,” she says. “But it’s not hard. I have a passion for people with sarcoma, and I connect with them on another level because of my personal experience...