Cancer patients often face an overwhelming sum of information; sorting through treatment options and coping strategies can be both intimidating and confusing.

As a solution, many hospitals and advocacy groups are soliciting what they call professional cancer coaches—paid workers or trained volunteers who help patients tackle the mountain of options they face. The coaches approach patients with objectivity; rather than offering advice, they present information. Cancer coaches are rapidly becoming more commonplace. A few years ago, the American Cancer Society started a patient navigator program that now flourishes in 87 locations. The National Breast Cancer Coalition also trains coaches who are hired by treatment centers to aid patients of breast, lung, prostate, and other cancers.

Demand for coach-training sessions has exceeded the conferences’ capacities. Though the Avon Foundation and nine pharmaceutical companies subsidize some attendees through grants, dozens are turned down annually. At the recent San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, 240 attendants received training on the most current cancer research in order to become effective coaches.

According to an Associated Press article, coaches are taught that while every patient is different, they should all be guaranteed the same basic privileges:

• “Support: an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold.
• Resources: reliable information or help getting it, and only if the patient wants it.
• Objectivity: a willingness to help patients discover what is best for them, rather than to validate the coach’s own cancer battle and choices.”

Friends and family are a vital part of a patient’s support network, but when untrained people act as authorities, bad advice can cause trauma to compound. Cancer coaches aim to combine expertise with empathy, so that having a partner in a battle against cancer is an asset and not a liability.