Charting Your Course : Main Menu : About the Course

A Whole Person Approach to Living with Cancer

The Charting Your Course program is a series of four seminars, meant to help you learn how to navigate your health care. Charting Your Course is intended for people recently diagnosed with cancer, their family members, and friends. The seminars address such topics as:

Symptom Management
Sense of Personal Control
Identification of Support Networks
Financial Issues
Spiritual Issues
Decision Making & Planning
Communication with Health Care Providers
Stages of Grief
Listening Skills
Impact of Illness on Family & Friends

The program was developed by Project ENABLE at Norris Cotton Cancer Center as a series of workshops under the following principles:

From first contact to last, share with patients information about the course of his or her disease, and options for treatment.
Strongly encourage patient & family participation in decision making and care.
Deliver care according to patients' preferences.
Care for each patient as a whole person, drawing on a multidisciplinary team.
Work with patients to anticipate and manage pain and other symptoms.
Offer coordinated care within patients' communities.

This self-paced version of Charting Your Course is comprised of the discussion topics, materials and activities from the pilot workshops. We also offer links to Internet resources and caregiver organizations and suggestions for further reading.

Here's what workshop participants have to say about the series:

"[These workshops were] real eye openers for everybody!"

"...You learn different things every time. You think you know it all, and you don't."

"[Before this series,] I don't think I thought much about managing symptoms so much as smiling and waiting for them to go away."

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This content is derived from the "Charting Your Course Seminars: A Whole Person Approach To Living With Cancer", provided by Norris Cotton Cancer Center.