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torrancememorial.org PULSE | 35 G etting a diagnosis of cancer is devastating enough on its own. But as anyone who has tackled cancer or any serious disease knows, that's just the beginning. e steps toward treatment— making decisions, scheduling and keeping appointments, dealing with insurance companies, seeking a second opinion, just showing up—can be almost as overwhelming as the disease itself. is is where the Torrance Memorial Medical Center Hunt Cancer Institute Nurse Navigators program steps in. Nurse navigators guide patients along the path to recovery by helping them make informed medical decisions and assisting with scheduling multiple doctors' appointments and tests. Navigators also provide help when it comes to: coping with a patient's prognosis, making sure they stay on track with their treatment plans, running interference on insurance issues and offering emotional support. All this is at no additional charge to patients. "I see myself as a coordinator of care for patients when they are not in the hospital," says Torrance Memorial oncology nurse navigator (NN) Melissa Gunlund, MSN, RN. "When they're admitted for surgery, for instance, the doctors and nurses on staff take care of them. But when they are outpatients, they have to deal with all these different doctors, tests and treatments on their own. It does get overwhelming. I make sure they understand why they're seeing each doctor or getting each test and streamline the process as much as I can. And they know there is one person who they can call and ask a question." is kind of access to answers is invaluable to patients, as Evelyn V. Calip, BSN, RN, Hunt Cancer Institute oncology nurse navigator and breast cancer survivor herself knows. Every time a patient sees her she understands she is benefiting them in three crucial areas: EDUCATION. "We explain a diagnosis and treatment plan," Calip says. "We let patients know what to expect before, during and aer surgery, and what it will be like in the hospital. I bring in patients who have been through it to talk to them." COORDINATION OF PATIENT APPOINTMENTS. "I've been known to make a phone call to speed up booking," Calip says. ASSESSING THE BARRIERS TO THEIR CARE. This includes financial, transportation and language barriers. "We have so many languages spoken here at the hospital, we find someone who can translate or we can use WOW (Workstation On Wheels) language translator. We can arrange a Torrance Memorial van for transportation. We can even find a way to help them financially if they are underinsured." Calip has been a registered nurse since 1982, and her nursing experience surely helps her do her job. But her experience as a breast cancer patient—at Torrance Memorial Hunt Cancer Institute, no less—has been just as important. "I started a support group called Evelyn's Breast Friends Forever and just became passionate about helping women who were going through what I did. When one of the breast nurse navigators le, I heard about the opening, came to observe and just fell in love with it." THE HISTORY OF NURSE NAVIGATORS e idea of nurse navigating was pioneered in 1990 by Harold P. Freeman, MD, a doctor at Harlem Hospital in New York City, to help medically underserved patients overcome obstacles to cancer diagnoses and treatment. is included paying their bills, finding transportation, arranging child care, making appointments, helping request sick leave and responding to emotional fallout. At the time a disproportionate number of the poor in New York were dying from cancer and Dr. Freeman's research indicated a need for caring professionals to help uninsured and underinsured patients get the care and follow-up they needed to survive. Dr. Freeman, a former president of the American Cancer Society, believed no one with cancer should spend more time fighting their way through the system than fighting the disease. And while the programs were started to assist low-income patients, care for illnesses like cancer can be so complicated that all patients, regardless Above, left: Surgeon Steven Fisher, MD. Above, right: At tumor board—oncologists, surgeons, radiologists, anesthesiologists and nurse navigators confer on each cancer patient's case.