# A Patient-Centered Perspective on Cancer Survivorship

## TL;DR

This paper explores cancer survivorship from a patient-centered perspective, highlighting the need to address the full range of challenges faced by cancer patients beyond just the medical aspects.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a patient-centered, multidimensional view of cancer survivorship based on qualitative insights from a social media poll.

## Key findings

- Cancer survivorship is often misunderstood as an identity rather than a complex process.
- Patients experience physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and existential challenges.
- A patient-centered approach can lead to more comprehensive cancer care.

## Abstract

Survivorship is a complicated notion because people often confuse a process of survivorship with a mythic identity of being a cancer survivor. This confusion may be a distraction to addressing the real-life struggles and challenges experienced by all people diagnosed with cancer. A more expansive perspective of survivorship, one that attends to patients’ physical, psychological, social, spiritual, and existential challenges throughout a continuum of care, would be more in line with what is known empirically about people’s experiences with cancer. In an effort to gain a patient-centered perspective on cancer, and one that emphasizes multiple dimensions of cancer survivorship, the author reports findings from a non-scientific social media poll (via Facebook and personal emails) in which survivors and colleagues working in the field of cancer survivorship answered the question: What does cancer survivorship mean to you? The comments are enlightening and useful for guiding the development of a patient-centered, and, thus, more comprehensive, approach to caring for people affected by cancer.