With $1.1M gift, cancer center to develop holistic care program
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The University of Arizona Cancer Center plans to use a $1.1 million gift to support a program that will integrate traditional cancer treatment with holistic practices that reflect the culture of the patient population.
“In our catchment area, we have a 40% Latino population and a large percentage of American Indians and people who have practices outside of Western medicine,” Jennifer Hatcher, PhD, MPH, MSN, associate director of cancer community outreach and engagement for University of Arizona Cancer Center and professor at Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, told Healio. “So, our idea was to expand that to be more inclusive.”
The gift, which comes from the estate of Tom and Catherine Culley, is intended to fund three areas of Arizona-based cancer research: prevention, treatment and survivorship. Hatcher outlined the goals of the new holistic medicine program and discussed how it is aligned with oncology’s overall shift toward precision medicine.
Healio: What inspired your institution to initiate this new program?
Hatcher: It started with the donation — we had the idea that at the time of diagnosis, oncology care often does not include what are considered alternative or complementary therapies. People are very interested in having those — they’re culturally grounded in traditional healing and other practices outside of Western medicine. We understand that patients are currently receiving these therapies, however, we think they are being practiced more in parallel than integrative ways. People are not having the option at diagnosis to include these other therapies in their plan of care.
As we considered this idea, we had a donor who was interested in it. My understanding is that Ms. Culley wished some of these nontraditional components had been integrated into her own care plan or those of her family members. She had to look up things about nutrition on her own, for example. She wanted caretakers to be integrated into cancer care more closely, and she wanted to look at other complementary therapies.
Healio: What will your new program offer patients at diagnosis?
Hatcher: The first part of the grant will go toward understanding people’s interests. We want to determine which communities are using which therapies, and what they would like to see integrated. I envision that at diagnosis — when the physician usually comes in and discusses chemotherapy, radiation, surgery and immunotherapy — we can offer a menu of these other therapies, as well.
We can integrate these spiritual practices alongside traditional healing. A patient would be able to say, “My faith is very important to me; I’d like to have my priest be part of this from the time of diagnosis.” So, when we have a plan-of-care meeting for that patient, the priest would be involved. For an American Indian, it may be that certain ceremonies would need to be conducted in conjunction, or there might be certain herbs or other medicines that we would need to consider. Our vision is that all of this would be offered at the time of diagnosis.
Healio: How will you determine what services the patient population will want?
Hatcher: We have formed a steering committee that will include myself and traditional healers, some Eastern practitioners and some tribal members. We are going to hire a coordinator and then form a larger advisory board that will help us look at these kinds of practices. I imagine as we form the committee, we will include religious practitioners, traditional healers, acupuncturists and others, as well as oncologists.
In addition to these advisory boards, we will conduct a survey of current patients in our catchment area from a cross-cultural perspective. We will ask them about their interests. Those are the strategies we will use to try to understand where to go. Then we will introduce these services one at a time, likely starting with whichever one people seem most interested in. We will step them in so we can make sure we are integrating them seamlessly and our Western physicians don’t get too thrown off by the fact that there’s a priest in the treatment room, for example.
We will try not to make it too overwhelming. We will also try to tailor the services to the patient. In that way, the menu gets a bit tighter and more specific. We can almost personalize it — it’s the ultimate in precision medicine.
Healio: Is there anything else you would like to say on this topic?
Hatcher: This is an idea whose time has come. We’re all headed toward precision medicine, but we’re also addressing the idea that precision medicine and precision risk includes more than just Western medicine. The time has come for us to think more expansively about how we treat people, especially those who are left behind or have health disparities. These health disparities may be caused in part by the exclusion of practices that have worked for centuries for these patient groups. The inclusion of these practices might improve the health of these populations.
For more information:
Jennifer Hatcher, PhD, MPH, MSN, can be reached at hatcher@arizona.edu.
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