Cancer Survivorship Care Roles for Primary Care Physicians

This important study by Crabtree and colleagues provides rich, qualitative data to characterize primary care clinicians’ perspectives on their role in the care of cancer survivors. The authors identify professional identity as a key factor in shaping primary care clinicians’ attitudes toward cancer survivorship care. They emphasize the need to integrate cancer survivorship education into all levels of medical education in order to prepare primary care clinicians to participate in cancer survivorship care.

In this vein, we would like to share an educational resource that we think will be valuable to those interested in learning more about the integration of cancer survivorship care with primary care. Through a partnership across primary care, oncology, and survivorship, we have created a short case-based, animated, online course for a broad audience of learners. The course is free and available on the Stanford CME portal: https://mededucation.stanford.edu/courses/health-after-cancer/

With this resource, we hope to spread awareness of common cancer survivorship issues that arise in primary care. We are motivated by our patients to stimulate discussion and collaboration between primary care and oncology, to optimize health after cancer for all survivors.