ADDRESSING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS OF CANCER SURVIVORS

***Lurie Cancer Center’s STAR Program (Survivors Taking Action & Responsibility) Shows Innovation in long-term Cancer Care***

Dr. Timothy Pearman

Psychologist at Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine

For childhood cancer survivors, learning to protect their health and embrace survivorship is a lifelong job. 20 years ago, the STAR Program (Survivors Taking Action & Responsibility), a clinical, research and education program for adult survivors of childhood cancer at the Lurie Cancer Center, was one of the first in the nation to take this innovative approach to long-term care, and serves as a model for other institutions seeking to meet the needs of the growing population of childhood cancer survivors.

Since 2001, the program has provided research-based state-of-the-art survivorship care for patients who were diagnosed before age 21, addressing the medical, psychological, and social challenges that can occur months, or even years after treatment ends.  At the Cancer Survivorship Institute, Northwestern Doctors work closely with more than 35 faculty members to study environmental, biobehavioral, psychosocial and genetic factors in cancer survivorship. There, research is done on the psychosocial and physical effects on cancer survivors, their families and the community and behavioral interventions to improve patient-reported outcomes.

On March 27, Dr. Timothy Pearman, a psychologist at Lurie Cancer Center will be available to discuss the importance of these programs and the strides being made in long-term Cancer care.

For more information please visit www.nm.org/radio

More About Dr. Timothy Pearman

Dr. Timothy Pearman is a Psychologist at Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medicine. He is a board-certified clinical health psychologist, a Fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Health Psychology (ACHP) and Director of the Supportive Oncology program at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Pearman has served on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Health Disparities and Equity Promotion (HDEP) subcommittee, as well as the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Subcommittee G (Education). He served on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN)’s distress management expert panel. He is the disease section leader for quality of life for the Scientific Review Committee of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is a member of the Institute for Public Health and Medicine at Northwestern University, and is a member of the Northwestern Medicine Cancer Committee. He has been a clinical associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry & Neurology at the Tulane University School of Medicine since 2000 and was the Director of the Tulane Cancer Center in New Orleans, LA from 2008-2011.