By Carol A. Rosenberg, MD, FACP
2018 Cancer Survivorship Symposium Steering Committee Chair

Join us at for the Finding Your Path in Survivorship Networking Luncheon at the 2018 Cancer Survivorship Symposium on Friday, February 16, from 12:30 PM–1:30 PM.

Survivorship remains the frontier in the cancer care continuum. Those of us who speak the language of survivorship, practice clinical survivorship, and teach the science of survivorship—whether we are oncologists, surgeons, primary care physicians, advanced practice clinicians, program innovators, medical educators, researchers, or patient advocates—often feel a sense of isolation from the rest of the health care world. What I refer to as survivorists—health care champions who lead survivorship endeavors in academic and community settings alike—are often lone rangers.

The inaugural Cancer Survivorship Symposium in 2016 and the subsequent symposium in 2017 were notable for beginning the conversation among health professionals and stakeholders with different perspectives, insights, and experiences, and for the inspirational sensibilities, ideological and evidence-based support we all experienced as a result of 2 days filled with collaborative teaching, learning, and networking. Building on our success of the first two symposia, the 2018 Cancer Survivorship Symposium will further cultivate collaborative processes with an exciting networking luncheon that reveals the secret formulae to becoming a survivorist as disclosed by seasoned professionals.

The Finding Your Path in Survivorship Networking Luncheon offers attendees an invaluable opportunity to speak with and learn from senior survivorists who are known for transformational leadership and who collectively have a wide variety of expertise in the survivorship arena. Join one of the roundtables (listed below) for lunch and use this opportunity to gain meaningful insight into career paths and programmatic development to help you cultivate your own place in the survivorship community.

If you have ever hesitated to attend a networking event because you weren’t sure what to talk about, here are a few questions to pose at your roundtable to get the conversation started:

• What academic or professional resources are valuable when starting or evolving a survivorship program?
• How can you educate your proposed survivorship workforce?
• How can I find a mentor in this field? What do you look for in a mentor?

We hope you’ll join one of the following roundtables for lunch:

• I will be leading a discussion on “Building a Hospital or Community-Based Program”
• Crystal S. Denlinger, MD, FACP, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, will facilitate a conversation around “Starting a Disease-Specific Program”
• Larissa Nekhlyudov, MD, MPH, of Brigham & Women’s Hospital, will offer guidance on “Caring for Adult Survivors in a Medical Practice”
• Smita Bhatia, MD, MPH, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, will describe “Building and Evolving a Pediatric or Young Adult Program”
• Kevin C. Oeffinger, MD, of Duke University, will address “Navigating Survivorship Research”
• Deborah Mayer, PhD, AOCN, FAAN, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will focus on “Using the EHR to Advance Programs and Research”

The 2018 Cancer Survivorship Symposium will take place on February 16-17 in Orlando, FL. I look forward to seeing you there.

In addition to serving as chair of the 2018 Cancer Survivorship Symposium Steering Committee, Dr. Rosenberg is the director of Preventive Health Initiatives, and founder and director of The Living in the Future (LIFE) Cancer Survivorship Program at NorthShore University HealthSytem—a four-hospital health system with a service area which includes northeast Chicago and its north and northwestern suburbs. Her clinical, academic, and research interests include women's health, cancer survivorship programming, health professional survivorship curricula, and survivorship workforce training.