Losing a Comforting Ritual: Treatment
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July 2, 2009
For many, cancer treatment - no matter how grueling or "successful" - becomes a routine. Once that routine is broken and treatment is complete, many are faced with the uncertainty of "what's next?" In fact, most survivors report that this is one of the scariest moments they can recall in their cancer experience. Dana Jennings, a New York Times editor and prostate cancer survivor, blogs about his personal experiences with cancer, and most recently shared his feelings about the uncertainty of completing treatment, "Losing a Comforting Ritual: Treatment," June 30, 2009. In a report commissioned by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a panel of experts in cancer care called this population “lost in transition,” without a coordinated follow-up plan to address their unique post-treatment needs and with few guidelines to assist them through the next stage of their life. The same report offers a solution: survivorship care planning, which includes a treatment summary and a follow up care plan for all cancer survivors. Survivorship care planning is crucial to the quality and coordination of cancer care. NCCS is encouraging you to support a bill in Congress called the Comprehensive Cancer Care Improvement Act (H.R. 1844), which calls for better coordination of care and improved communication between patients and their healthcare teams before, during, and after treatment and includes survivorship care planning at its core.
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