By Shin Hyun-young
When I was a resident, my father was unexpectedly diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Despite surgical resection and multiple rounds of radiation therapy, the tumor recurred five years later.
The painful experience of battling cancer and coping with the treatment brought our family closer together.
However, in general, the overwhelming stress that cancer patients and their families undergo harms their physical, psychological and social wellbeing.
Although I had encountered several cancer patients during my training program as a doctor, being a family member of a cancer patient generated a different set of feelings in me.
I became anxious about every step of cancer therapy that was being administered to my father, and at times, any abnormal changes in me would make me worry about
possible proliferation of cancer cells in my own body.
Irregular eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle owing to a busy work schedule added to my nervousness because I knew a healthy lifestyle was important for preventing carcinogenesis.
However, at the time, no system was in place to ensure the wellbeing of the families of cancer patients.
Therefore, family caregivers were at risk of abusing their own bodies while looking after the cancer patient, whether in a hospital or at home.
Doctor Fitzhugh Mullan, a graduate of Harvard Medical School, was diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 32 and began his journey as a cancer patient.
He was subjected to the various painful experiences that cancer patients usually suffer through as part of treatment _ surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, skin graft at the surgical site, and dysfunction of the esophagus resulting from radiation therapy complications.
Although modern medicine is constantly trying to conquer cancer through research, a sense of emptiness continues to remain in the lives of cancer survivors, who are compelled to manage their lives without continued support from medical staff after cancer treatment is ended.
“Cancer survivorship” is a study to provide integrated medical and social support based on scientific research in order to improve healthcare, follow-up treatment and quality of life for cancer patients, their families and caregivers.
It attempts to address the cancer-related emotions and social disparity or adjustment problems that cancer patients face during their journey from cancer diagnosis to end of life.
Cancer survivorship can be categorized into three stages: “acute survival,” which is the active treatment period, “extended survival,” which is the follow-up period after the completion of treatment, and “permanent survival,” in which the patients live on with a lower likelihood of relapse.
The scope of cancer survivorship is broad, as it includes regular health check-ups for cancer monitoring, management of cancer complications, healthy lifestyle maintenance, management of chronic diseases and immunization.
Currently, there is the expectation that medical staff members and social workers will be able to provide comprehensive care to cancer survivors even after active cancer treatment is concluded.
South Korea now has close to 1.5 million cancer patients.
The number of cancer survivors is expected to increase as the five-year survival rate is increasing owing to early cancer detection and development of cancer treatment technology.
Cancer survivors who have completed treatment are more likely to be concerned about recurrence and detection of other types of secondary cancer.
This can lead to anxiety, depression, stress, anorexia, an unbalanced diet, weight loss, low self-esteem and social inactivity.
For cancer survivors, the end of cancer treatment is the time to begin new healthcare management.
If cancer-related symptoms specific to each department could be adequately treated by comprehensive and integrated cancer survivorship programs, cancer survivors would not have to engage in “hospital shopping.”
Cancer survivorship is the effort to bridge the gap between modern medicine and cancer patients’ expectations and it has only just begun.
The writer is a professor of family medicine in Myongji Hospital.