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CPDR Patient Education Program

 

Central to the CPDR Patient Education Program is the educational and counseling services provided to patients and their families by the CPDR's patient educators. At the Multi-disciplinary Prostate Cancer Clinic, she provides newly diagnosed prostate cancer patients and their families with invaluable information essential to understanding their disease and making an informed decision about their cancer treatment as well as emotional support to facilitate their adjustment to their cancer diagnosis.

The Patient Educators also provide extensive (4-5 hour) individual, couple or small-group preoperative counseling sessions for patients (and their families) scheduled to undergo a radical retropubic prostatectomy or robotic-assisted laparoscopic prostatectomy. These comprehensive sessions coach the patient and their families through the preoperative and postoperative phases of the surgery thereby facilitating their surgical recovery as well as emotional recovery. The counseling sessions are also another venue in which participation in research studies at CPDR is addressed. Another vital component of the Patient Education Program for prostatectomy patients is the Battle Buddy Program initiated in 2006. This program matches patients scheduled for a prostatectomy with "veteran" prostatectomy patients who volunteer to contact the new patient throughout their surgical experience to provide guidance and support as needed. CPDR has about 50 volunteer Battle Buddies. Approximately fifty percent of our prostatectomy patients each year (40-50) choose to be involved in the Battle Buddy Program.

The Patient Educator also provides individualized educational and counseling services to patients in the Prostate Cancer Recurrence Clinic. They provide the patients and their families with information about the various treatment options and resources with which to make an informed treatment decision as well as resources to help them cope with their progressing disease and the opportunities to participate in clinical research studies.