By Trent Moore

trentm@cullmantimes.com

Cancer patient Lorraine Smith said she didn’t know what to do when she first learned she had cancer, but with the help of Cullman Regional Medical Center’s new First Care Clinic program she is pressing on with all the guidance she needs.

“It has been so beneficial for me,” Smith said Thursday at a seminar introducing First Care. “It has been invaluable and helped me get through this so much.”

Smith was the first patient to go through the new program, which began in January, and is currently undergoing treatment for colon cancer.

“I was diagnosed in December,” Smith said. “I volunteered and became a willing guinea pig for First Care and I’ve never felt alone since.”

The concept for the First Care Clinic came from the WellStar Oncology Clinic in Marietta, Ga.

“We saw how much the program was helping cancer patients there,” First Care Clinic Coordinator Lori McGrath said. “So we sent a team out to study the concept and bring it back.”

Assistant Vice-president of Marketing Maria Stanford said First Care should present a very unique option to cancer patients in the Cullman area.

“It’s very unique for a smaller community hospital to have a program like this,” she said.

McGrath said the program was designed to more efficiently handle patients that are diagnosed with cancer, and marks a new approach to cancer treatment for CRMC.

“The program was created to give someone that has been diagnosed with cancer a champion to help them through the transition,” she said.

The patient’s “champion” will be a nurse navigator, who will function as a liaison with the various medical specialists, define medical terms and help explain the different treatment options available. If a patient requests a second opinion, the nurse navigator will help schedule that, as well.

The nurse navigator will also coordinate with the patient’s navigation team which includes a surgeon, primary physician, medical and radiation oncologists, social worker, dietitian, counselor and chaplain.

Stanford said she sees the program as a less confusing, more head-on approach to dealing with cancer.

“This is the full-court press,” she said.

Another major goal of First Care is to decrease the amount of time between when a patient is diagnosed with cancer to the point where treatment begins.

“The usual average is close to 60 days,” McGrath said. “We’re trying to get that number down to less than two weeks.”

To streamline the process, First Care will assemble all of a patient’s physicians together to consider what approach best meets the patients needs so treatment can begin immediately.

“Since I’ve been a part of this program I’ve learned that cancer treatment is very customized for different cases,” Smith said.

McGrath is currently the first and only nurse navigator in the program, which is handling approximately 20 cancer patients.

“I’m it,” McGrath said, who left Hospice to be a part of the First Care program. “I wanted to help people that were further up the pipe and actually see more of my patients get better.”

The First Care Clinic is only handling breast, colon, and prostate cancer currently, but McGrath said the program plans to take lung cancer cases in the fall.

“We’re currently rolling in case types,” McGrath said. “We hope to be going full speed by the end of the year.”

The First Care Clinic can be reached at 737-2111.