Navigators, Coaches and Patient Advocates offer critical support services to patients diagnosed with cancer who must navigate through many healthcare and life decisions.
CancerChoices, a free, nonprofit resource whose team includes nurse navigators, coaches, and medical advocates, can serve as a critical resource for navigators, coaches, and advocates who seek evidence-based, balanced information on a whole person, integrative approach to cancer care.
An integrative approach combines conventional treatments with lifestyle practices and evidence-based complementary therapies, including supplements and mind-body practices. This whole-person approach can support patients, improving their quality of life and cancer outcomes.
Resources to help you learn more about Integrative Oncology
- Integrative Oncology Overview for Professionals, a section from CancerChoices’ Nurses Guide to Integrative Oncology, offers a comprehensive overview of Integrative Oncology.
- Integrative Oncology in Practice, another section from CancerChoices’ Nurses Guide, offers practical insights on incorporating integrative oncology into practice.
Resources for guiding patients
- Supplements and Therapies Database provides an evidence-based overview and rating of complementary therapies, including diets, supplements, repurposed drugs, and mind-body practices.
- Side Effect Guides provide an overview of lifestyle practices and complementary therapies supported by evidence to alleviate key side effects.
- 7 Lifestyle Practices shares the robust evidence base and key recommendations for incorporating lifestyle practices into a care routine.
- Optimizing Your Body Terrain resources offer an overview of essential terrain factors in one’s body linked to cancer growth and spread, such as the immune system, inflammation, the microbiome and more, that can be optimized for better outcomes.
- Guidance by Phase pages can serve as a resource to help guide patients through the various considerations one faces at different phases of the cancer continuum, including at Diagnosis, in Treatment, in Remission and when facing a Recurrence.
- When Conventional Treatment is Not an Option offers a wealth of caring guidance for people who are considering forgoing conventional cancer treatment for a variety of reasons.
Integrative Oncology Navigation Training
If you are interested in a course to help you incorporate integrative oncology into your navigation or coaching practice, explore the Integrative Oncology Navigation Training program, offered in collaboration with the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts and the George Washington University Office of Integrative Medicine and Health.