Supportive Care Medicine Professional Education Programs
The Department of Supportive Care Medicine is central to City of Hope’s mission to bring breakthrough medicine to patients in a setting of compassionate, patient-centered care. Our highly skilled, interdisciplinary team, which includes supportive medicine physicians, nurses, health educators, patient navigators, chaplains, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, child life specialists and others, embodies City of Hope’s guiding philosophy, coined by one of our earliest leaders, “There is no profit in curing the body if, in the process, we destroy the soul.”
Patients and families engage the health care system while trying to best manage a diagnosis that will significantly impact all areas of their lives. The Department of Supportive Care Medicine was specifically envisioned and structured to provide a seamless suite of comprehensive services that anticipate and meet the supportive care needs of patients, families and our colleagues. The department is unique in that it is, by design, profoundly patient- and family-centered, rather than the traditional profession-centric approach. All of the supportive care professionals and the two Patient and Family Advisory Councils (English and Spanish) are organized into one integrated interdisciplinary department that is driven by how patients can best access services to maximize the benefits of medical care.
The Department of Supportive Care Medicine/Sheri & Les Biller Patient and Family Resource Center is recognized as a national leader in providing patient-centered, comprehensive supportive care from an interdisciplinary team of professionals. Clinical observerships are available.
Federal funding and philanthropic gifts to train and mentor leaders at institutions around the world to build similarly integrated programs into their medical care has affirmed our excellence and leadership:
- In 2018, City of Hope received a $1 million gift from The Sheri and Les Biller Family Foundation to launch two transformative supportive care projects to train oncologists, nurses and other health care professionals nationwide to deliver the institution’s signature compassionate, holistic cancer care.
- In 2015, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded Mt. Sinai School of Medicine a $1.4 million in collaboration with City of Hope to train supportive care clinicians in the delivery of advanced evidenced-based cognitive behavioral interventions for anxiety, fatigue, depression and insomnia, described as the four largest contributors to cancer related distress.
- In 2013, the NCI awarded City of Hope $1.6 million to train health care professionals around the world how to implement biopsychosocial screening programs of excellence.
- In 2012, the NCI awarded us a $1.5 million grant to train health care professionals around the world how to build, implement and evaluate supportive care programs modeled on ours at City of Hope. (The grant was successfully completed.)
Information and nonbranded materials regarding a number of our department’s clinical supportive care programs are also available.
For general questions, please reach out to us at: DSCM@coh.org