Supporting Cancer Survivors: The Clinician's Role

EP: 1.Holistically Defining Cancer Survivorship

EP: 2.Seeing Cancer as a Chronic Illness

EP: 3.Challenges Facing Cancer Survivors

EP: 4.The Role of Support in Cancer Survivorship

EP: 5.Working With Underserved Populations of Cancer Survivors

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EP: 6.Supporting Cancer Survivors: The Clinician's Role

A patient's oncology team plays a pivotal role in supporting cancer survivors throughout their journey. These include providing ongoing care and monitoring, offering emotional support, and educating and empowering patients. An oncology team can also advocate for patients by coordinating care with other health care providers. By providing these services, clinicians can significantly enhance the quality of life for cancer survivors and help them navigate the challenges of survivorship.

Here, Amy Selly, CNP, AOCNP, Allina Health medical oncology advanced practice provider lead, discusses how clinicians can support patients' survivorship journeys.

Transcription:

0:05 | You need to be a good active listener. So the first thing is you have to really be listening for those cues that there may be some needs that are unmet. When we're really looking at our cancer survivors and all of their needs, they could have physical needs. They might have some, you know, emotional or mental health needs, they they may have some underlying financial needs that are a barrier for them to follow through or to to agree to go to some of the resources that we have. So using those listening skills can really help hone in if there are some barriers there that we can overcome.

0:52 | Then providing education on how some of these survivorship resources can really help the patient in the long term. And then really having access to the services. And so the services I'm talking about are things like cancer rehabilitation so that people can improve their functional status. Sometimes the use of integrative therapy for various things that can be long-term side effects. It can be from the emotional impact as well. With that, we're looking at sexual health resources, so there's a lot of sexual dysfunction that can come out of many of our diagnoses and treatments that happen with it. The mental health resources that we have that are vast. Dietitians, all of our healthy living resources that come with it. So you really have to be able to provide that education, because patients trust their oncology team, and so they need to hear that from us that what they're feeling is normal and can be expected, but that we have these resources that can really help them optimize their health and move towards having a better, higher quality of life as they move forward.