ecancermedicalscience

Conference Report

Pioneering psycho-oncology: A collaborative journey for medical and psychology students at ecancer-Tata Medical Center Kolkata Psycho-oncology Congress 2024

17 Jan 2025
Soumitra Shankar Datta, Heena Sheth, Sharmili Ghosh, Srijan Das, Jigeesha Ghosh, Dishari Choudhury, Arnab Mukherjee, Soumita Ghose, Romy Biswas, Maria Castrillo Gil, Carlos Andres Gamboa Alfaro, Mary Guevara, Danny Burke, Sujit Sarkhel, Jai Ranjan Ram

Psycho-oncology is an upcoming specialisation that encompasses the psychological and social aspects of cancer care. In an integrated psycho-oncology service, consultant psychiatrists and clinical psychologists come together with other professionals to treat comorbid psychiatric disorders of cancer patients and their caregivers. Psycho-oncologists also contribute to improving clinician-patient communication, address staff burnout and conduct translational research. The ecancer-Tata Medical Center Kolkata Psycho-oncology Congress, 2024 was an initiative to encourage multi-disciplinary learning in undergraduate and postgraduate medical and psychology students and early career professionals. Written feedback from 106 participants who comprised 71% (71%, 106/149) of the pre-registered delegates, showed that the overwhelming majority found the overall experience as ‘excellent’ (75/106, 70.75%) or ‘good’ (27/106, 25%). The qualitative free-text feedback expressed the desire for longer psycho-oncology conferences ‘spread over two days’, eagerness to learn about qualitative and quantitative ‘research methods’ and specific therapeutic techniques used to treat common psychiatric comorbidities in cancer patients. A video providing an overview of the event is available here: https://ecancer.org/en/video/12232-reflections-after-the-ecancer-tata-medical-center-kolkata-psycho-oncology-congress-2024. This event generated a set of educational videos on psycho-oncology that are available online here: https://ecancer.org/en/conference/1551-ecancer-tmc-kolkata-psycho-oncology-congress.

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