Outer Banks cancer patients to get extra care through projects

By Ryan Hutchins

NAGS HEAD

Cancer patients on the Outer Banks have gained two more programs that organizers hope will make life a little bit easier.

A twice-monthly specialty clinic will bring physicians on rotation from University of North Carolina Health Care to Dare County.

The clinic and a patient "navigator" program that will start soon are pilot projects that could one day be found in out-of-reach communities around the state.

"We're using this as a way to see if we can provide consultation care - second opinions," said Thomas C. Shea, a physician with the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer C enter who will help coordinate the new programs.

The clinic will host a different specialist every other Friday, Shea said in a phone interview. Within a year, a specialist for each major type of cancer will have seen local patients four times.

"We realize there may be people who need to be seen more frequently than that," Shea said. For those patients, there are other facilities around the state and existing treatment options available locally.

The program is not being put in place as a replacement for treatment already available from The Outer Banks Hospital's general oncologists, Shea said. "We feel it's important that we support the existing resources."

UNC approached with a request in late 2006 from the Dare County Board of Commissioners to look at creating such a project. Chairman Warren Judge said he and the board are pleased to see the project come to fruition.

"Cancer is a dreaded disease, and a lot of our folks are suffering from it," he said. "We just want to do things to improve the quality of life."

The navigator program is intended to help patients through the sometimes long and complicated treatment process. UNC, working with Dare County government, has hired one registered nurse and is in the process of interviewing for a second navigator position.

The two will offer a free service, funded through the University Cancer Research Fund, that is intended to provide an array of information and assistance to patients. That could range from laying out options for therapy, financial counseling and transportation, to more simple tasks such as finding wigs for chemotherapy patients, according to Shea and a news release from UNC.

If the two programs succeed in helping local patients, UNC would like to start implementing similar programs in other areas of the state.

"We look at Dare as a good model for a community that has some resources in place, but it is also kind of isolated," Shea said.

The county and UNC also are looking into developing new telecommunication tools at The Outer Banks Hospital that could give patients another way to connect with UNC's cancer physicians without traveling to Chapel Hill, Shea said.

Ryan Hutchins, (252) 441-1627, ryan.hutchins@pilotonline.com