Developing a survivorship specific curriculum for an advanced practice provider fellowship.

Abstract

14 Background: Holistic oncology care combines cancer treatment with supportive care to meet the physical and psychosocial needs of the cancer survivor. Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) are prepared to deliver high-quality, comprehensive oncology care and are vital to survivorship care as the number of cancer survivors continues to rise. At a Midwest Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC), an APP oncology-specific fellowship is an innovative year-long postgraduate clinical training program. For the first time, a 2 week rotation through this CCC’s survivorship department will be piloted to provide the fellow with a basic immersion into survivorship care. Methods: APP oncology fellowship graduates completed an open ended survey. They were asked to reflect on their experiences during the fellowship and provide feedback on how to improve course content, and resources that are essential to the delivery of survivorship care. APPs within the survivorship department and the APP fellowship lead educator were asked what objectives they thought were important to be met. Results: APPs fellowship graduates desired to learn more about the philosophy of survivorship care, latent and long term side effect management, creation and delivery of a treatment summary and survivorship care plan (TS/SCP), and specific strategies for executing a meaningful survivorship care visit. Networking with oncology providers was also important. Survivorship department APPs and the fellowship lead thought it was important to know how to do a holistic and supportive care assessment, create a TS/SCP, interpret and manage a distress screening tool and make appropriate supportive care referrals. Conclusions: Cancer survivorship is an integral part of holistic oncology care. As the number of cancer survivors continues to increase, so does the need for supportive care services throughout the cancer continuum. Feedback from those surveyed was used to help develop a survivorship specific curriculum for APP oncology fellows. Educating future APPs in the principles of survivorship care and available supportive care services will result in expert clinicians in survivorship care, and improve overall well-being and quality of life of cancer survivors.