Interdisciplinary teams of physicians, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals such as psychologists, radiation technologists, chaplains, and administrators, are involved in the multitude of treatment options for cancer patients during the course of their illness. These professionals, however, are inadequately prepared to meet the follow-up needs of cancer survivors.

Martha Trout, Practice Administrator, and Heather Spotts, Oncology Social Worker of the MSU Breslin Cancer Center, have recently attended a comprehensive three-day course for interdisciplinary teams from cancer settings on survivorship care. The City of Hope (COH) Comprehensive Cancer Center received a 5-year grant from the National Cancer Institute to conduct this course. The project is led by Marcia Grant, RN, DNSc, FAAN, principal investigator, Betty Ferrell, RN, PhD, FAAN, and Smita Bhatia, MD co-investigators and Denice Economou, RN, MN, CNS, project director.

Fifty-three institutions were selected from cancer settings across the United States to attend this course, including the MSU Breslin Cancer Center. The principal goal of the course is to provide interdisciplinary teams with information on survivorship care issues and resources to implement goals aimed at improving survivorship care in their cancer institutions.

The course was conducted by a distinguished faculty of researchers, educators, authors, and leaders in the field of survivorship care. Topic areas targeted the recommendations from the 2006 Institute of Medicine report, “From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor—Lost in Transition.” State of the Science lectures addressed quality of life decisions and identified areas of need for survivorship care, as well as issues related to insurance coverage, developing survivorship clinics, and quality care issues. If you have additional questions, please contact Heather Spotts at 517-367-5226.

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last updated: 08/11/08

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