Communication in Cancer Care

Kathryn Nicholson Perry works at the Pain Management and Research Centre of the University of Sydney at Royal North Shore Hospital and offers training through her organization Stimuli Systems. She has previously worked in the HIV Mental Health Team at the Maudsley Hospital, and both the Richard Dimbleby Cancer Information and Support Service and INPUT Pain Management Unit at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital Trust in London.Mary Burgess is Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Head of Psycho-oncology Services at University College London Hospitals. She has previously worked at King's College Hospital and the Maudsley Hospital, where she was responsible for establishing the HIV Mental Health Team. She has also worked as a consultant for a number of leading corporations and served as national clinical supervisor for one of the UK's largest Employee Assistance Programmes.

• 1. Cancer and Its Management. 2. The Social and Emotional Effects of Cancer.3. The Individual Reality of Cancer.4. Coping with Cancer.5. The Helping Process.6. Using Counselling Skills to Clarify Problems.7. Problem Solving.8. Professional Issues for Those Using Counselling Skills.

‘This is an important book. It deals in a detailed, well-informed and approachable way with difficult issues. It offers much-needed help to health care workers who want to communicate sensitively with cancer patients. Enlivened by vignettes which illustrate each point, it is wise, humane and practical. I commend it strongly to everyone who needs to understand and talk about cancer to those who have the disease.’ Miles Little, Director, Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, University of Sydney ‘I welcome this book which should become the standard text for undergraduates and postgraduates in the humanization of modern medicine. At last we have two texts that can stand side by side, Communication in Cancer Care and C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too [by John Diamond], the heads and tails of the humane practice of oncology.’ Michael Baum, Emeritus Professor of Surgery and Visiting Professor of Medical Humanities, University College London