Healing and Cancer strives to bring the concepts of healing and whole person care further into health care delivery so that people with cancer feel better and live longer. This important book places the concepts, science, delivery tools, and access to further resources for whole person care into the hands of cancer care teams for use with patients and caregivers.
These days, cancer care generally focuses on attacking and killing the cancer cell--a laudable goal. However, if eliminating the tumor overshadows everything else, teams can lose sight of the care and healing of the person as a whole. This has great costs: for the person there are costs in time, money, side effects, and fear; and for the care team there are costs in the joy of practice, the energy to improve practice, and in overall vitality. Often, key patient needs are inadvertently pushed to the background for lack of time, tools, and resources. Moral injury and human suffering ensue.
Advances in science have now clearly demonstrated that cancer does not develop in isolation, and its occurrence, progression and regression are largely influenced by the surrounding environment--the immune system, inflammation in the body, and things we ingest and are exposed to. By utilizing the methodologies and concepts outlined in this book, oncology teams can bring the full science of cancer biology into the care of the patient while inviting the person into full engagement in their own care. Doing so, they will have achieved the highest quality of care for people diagnosed with cancer.
Care teams that practice deep listening--up front and early on--to patients as people move beyond patient-centered care to person-centered and whole person care. With increasing numbers of survivors of cancer and the intensity and duration of relationships in oncology, cancer care is a field uniquely positioned to further the uptake of whole-person care and to join colleagues in primary care who are doing the same.
Healing and Cancer first defines what whole person cancer care is, and drawing on examples from around the world, illustrates how and why it needs to be standard in all of oncology. The authors describe the science behind whole person care and the evidence that supports its application, including real-world examples of how it's being done in small clinics and large institutions, both academic and community-based. Finally, Healing and Cancer directs readers to the best tools and resources available so that cancer care teams, primary care clinicians, integrative practitioners and those with cancer can incorporate whole person care into the healing journey.
Healing and Cancer is intended to be read and actively used by teams caring for people with cancer and by caregivers and patients themselves to enhance healing, health, and wellbeing.
Author Biography:
Alyssa McManamon, MD, is a practicing hematologist-oncologist and retired US Air Force colonel. She is an associate professor of medicine at Boonshoft School of Medicine-Wright State University and clinical faculty at the Dayton VA Medical Center. She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in sociology before attending medical school at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. Alyssa trained in cancer medicine at the National Capital Consortium, completing a research year at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In 2021, she was one of 100 practitioners selected to complete the NCI-funded University of Michigan Integrative Oncology Scholars Program and founded a first-of-its-kind VA Whole Health Oncology clinic. She resides in Dayton, Ohio. Wayne Jonas, MD, is a board-certified, practicing family physician, an expert in integrative health and whole person care delivery, author of How Healing Works, and a widely published scientific investigator. Dr. Jonas is currently the president of Healing Works Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the integration of healing and curing in routine health care delivery. Dr. Jonas was the director of the Office of Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health, and prior to that served as the director of the Medical Research Fellowship at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians. His research has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, Nature Medicine, the Journal of Family Practice, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and The Lancet.
About Healing Works Foundation:
Healing Works Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to shifting health care delivery toward whole person care. Whole person care addresses full dimension of a human being--physical, behavioral, social and emotional, mental and spiritual--and it is delivered in a person-centered way. Led by President Wayne Jonas, MD, a family physician, researcher, and author of hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles on health and healing, Healing Works Foundation is committed to helping clinicians and patients access the resources that add health back into health care. Learn more at www.HealingWorksFoundation.org.
