Bernard and Millie Duker Children's Hospital (Albany Medical Center) Archives

2014

Impact Grant

Dr. Alexander Gozman

Albany, NY

Completion of cancer therapy should be a joyful event, however end-of-therapy is often as stressful as the initial diagnosis. The reasons for this are many: during therapy there is the comfort that interventions to fight the cancer are ongoing, and frequent clinic visits provide support from physicians, nurses and social workers. End-of-therapy means this reassurance is lost, often paralleled by loss of support from friends and the community who feel the patient is in remission, with no further needs. Over the past year, thanks to a Hyundai Young Investigator grant, we have been able to quantify this stress in parents of our patients completing therapy using the PAT 2.0 tool (supplied by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia). We intend to continue to measure the impact of an “end of therapy” coordinator in reducing this stress, and we will expand this project to include adolescent and young adults completing cancer therapy. This research complements our goal of creating a robust Survivorship program at the Melodies Center at Albany Medical Center.