03.06.2008 at 08:00
- Category:
Cancer and Oncology
LONDON -- Oncology, pain and communications experts from across Europe are today launching an innovative new educational workbook, entitled 'Cancer Tales': Communicating in cancer care, which combines real-life patient experiences of cancer with practical guidance to improve communication.
The workbook takes a completely new approach to healthcare professional education: it is based around a highly emotive play, Cancer Tales, written by Nell Dunn, which tells the stories of real cancer patients and their families. The book combines these real-life patient experiences with practical guidance to improve communication between healthcare professionals, patients and their carers. The dialogue in each original scene from the play is used to illustrate a particular communication issue, including diagnosis, discussions about disease progression and anxiety about examinations and treatment procedures. These issues are addressed through detailed chapters which provide advice, guidance and practical exercises designed to create an understanding of the impact of communication and to improve the interaction between healthcare professionals and their patients.
The workbook has been endorsed by Lance Armstrong, cancer survivor and founder of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, who says, "Often patients have many questions that remain unanswered, leaving them and their families more anxious than necessary during an already difficult time. I hope that this workbook will strike a chord with the medical profession to help them stop and consider the way they explain diagnosis, treatment, prognosis and living with cancer to their patients,"
The need for more effective communication in the management of cancer emerged in the recent European Pain in Cancer (EPIC) survey(1), which showed that most of those cancer patients questioned in depth had to proactively raise the subject of pain with their healthcare professional, with nearly a quarter stating that their healthcare professional never or only rarely asked about their pain.(1) Furthermore, of those patients in moderate to severe pain, one in five were not receiving treatment for their pain.(1)
"Palliative Care cannot be measured out like a medicine. Each patient is an individual and communication is vital in order to establish the care that is needed in each case. The Cancer Tales workbook not only emphasises this need but demonstrates ways in which to meet it." commented Hilary Hollis formerly from the Royal Marsden School of Cancer Nursing and Rehabilitation, Royal Marsden Hospital, London.
Cancer Tales: Communicating in cancer care is available online at http://www.cancertales.org or a hard copy may be requested from info@cancertales.org.
Cancer Tales: Communicating in cancer care was supported by an educational grant from Mundipharma International Ltd, Cambridge, England
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