Response to editorial by Richard Crevenna, MD, regarding "cancer rehabilitation and palliative care: critical components in the delivery of high-quality oncology services" by Silver et al.

Abstract

Richard Crevenna, MD, provided insightful comments in his editorial response to our article entitled “Cancer Rehabilitation and Palliative Care: Critical Components in the Delivery of High-Quality Oncology Services” [1]. We were impressed by Dr. Crevenna’s description of the recent initiatives in interdisciplinary care, particularly in symptom management, at the Comprehensive Cancer Centre of the Medical University of Vienna. Notable were the inclusion of a rehabilitation tumor board and the integration of rehabilitation services into a clinic dedicated to symptom management which extends beyond issues typically associated with rehabilitation (e.g., mucositis and nausea). We believe that this type of interdisciplinary collaboration is critical to the success of well-designed cancer rehabilitation programs. The need to support interdisciplinary collaboration is precisely why we wrote this article. In fact, the genesis of our article was Dr. Julie Silver’s invitation from the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer (MASCC) leadership to be a plenary speaker at the 2015 annual meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark. Though not related by design, this meeting followed a landmark cancer rehabilitation “state of the science” initiative in the USA that was led by the Rehabilitation Medicine Department (RMD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in collaboration with the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research (NCMRR) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In a variety of ways, every author on this paper participated in and supported this undertaking. During a conference at the NIH in June 2015, early findings were reported by workgroups comprised of subject matter experts. We anticipate publication of reports by the subject matter experts who participated in this cancer rehabilitation initiative. Dr. Silver co-chaired the Clinical Integration Work Group (CIWG) with Ana Acevedo, MD, a physiatrist from the NIH RMD. The CIWG developed preliminary recommendations in three related categories: education (preparing the workforce