Dear Healthcare Provider,
Thank you for your inerest in our retreat programs for cancer survivors and their caregivers. Modeled after Commonweal’s Cancer Help Programs originally pioneered in 1985, our retreats are designed to offer a safe and caring environment in which to explore what it takes to heal in mind, body and spirit. We come to this work with an understanding that healing does not mean curing; and that to be most effective, healing draws from within.
It is increasingly recognized that a focus on cure alone in cancer is not enough. We need to address the quality of life and function of each of those treated. However, with the steady increase in cancer diagnoses and long-term cancer survivors, meeting a ‘whole person care’ mandate is challenging if not impossible for most cancer centers, clinics and clinicians. Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, with its focus on delivering integrative cancer prorams, is committed to helping address this gap in care.
Our cancer retreats are designed to offer participants the opportunity to explore new ways to nourish and move in their bodies, cope with their illness, think about the meaning of cancer to them, connect with others on a siilar journey, and regain a sense of control often lost during cancer treatment.
Each retreat exposes participants to modalities with proven efficacy in reducing morbidity (such as yoga, nutritional education, and creative expression), and in some cases reducing mortality as well (social support, stress management, active versus passive coping).
Our retreats are staffed by highly skilled compassionate professionals, with decades of experience working within the cancer community. In the following video, “A Path to Healing,” you will hear from retreat staff and two participants (one of whom is a physician) about what they feel these programs provide. Our participants consistently tell us that our staff are “masters at enabling us to transform our cancer experience into an opportunity to discover untapped or lost parts of ourselves.”
We invite you to consider Smith Center as a partner in promoting the health and well-being of the cancer patients and families whom you treat.
