Support Services
![support gorup at round table](/files/MSHealth/Assets/HS/Care/Cancer/mshs-gynecologicancer-2col-770x420-1-v3.jpg)
Treating you as the whole woman you are in your life, your Mount Sinai cancer care team designs a treatment plan just right for you. Our goal is to ensure your quality of life and return to health.
For that reason, as part of your treatment, we offer a range of personal support services to empower you and ensure that you have the type of ongoing emotional support that lifts your spirits. In addition to your gynecologic oncologist, your Mount Sinai team will include nurses, counselors, and a therapist whose sole purpose is to offer you the kind of support that boosts your morale, helps you cope, and encourages you to thrive.
A Menu of Uplifting Groups
At our convenient locations in New York City, you will find what you need. We have a calendar of classes and events that we publish monthly, depending on your preferred location.
- Dubin Breast Center
- The Blavatnik Family – Chelsea Medical Center at Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai-Union Square
- Mount Sinai West and Mount Sinai Morningside
- Ruttenberg Treatment Center
We invite you to explore the many free support services we offer to you as part of your health care regimen. Discover new life skills through creative and practical experiences designed to nurture you in body, mind, and spirit. Choose from a rich menu of opportunities, such as:
- Art therapy—Our artist-in-residence helps everyone discover their own creative resources and have fun in waiting areas and in the infusion suite. It can also help you relax and maintain a positive attitude.
- Coffee Talk—Women with cancer discuss their experiences in a supportive setting.
- Cook for Your Life—You will learn to cook healthful foods and get positive nutritional tips and recipes.
- Guided imagery during chemotherapy—Our mindfulness expert offers individual, guided imagery that uses words or music to help you stay calm during infusion therapy.
- Journaling Workshop—Write your thoughts in a journal, which can be both creative and therapeutic.
- Latina SHARE—Estos grupos son facilitados por voluntarios etrenadas quienes han tenido una experiencia similar. Comparta informacion, experiencias, sentimientos y estrategias para aceptar y combatir aspetos negativos de la enfermedad. (English translation: Trained volunteers who have had a similar experience facilitate these groups. Share information, experiences, feelings, and strategies to help you cope.)
- Legal Health (NYLAG) Clinic—Lawyers are available to provide guidance on health-related legal matters.
- Massage therapy—Therapeutic massage can decrease stress and anxiety, depression, pain, fatigue, muscle tension, and nausea.
- Meditation—Meditate in a group or with a therapist to focus your thoughts and calm your mind.
- Moving for Life—This gentle form of dance helps you deal with some of the routine aches and pains that come with cancer treatment.
- Qi Gong/T’ai Chi Chih®—These Eastern traditions encompass meditation and gentle movement that you can do at any level of physical ability to focus on developing your inner energy.
- Sexuality and Intimacy Workshop—Led by a social worker, this workshop is for women in treatment and after treatment.
- Survivorship Lecture Series/Preparation of Life-Planning Documents—This is a discussion about various life-planning documents and includes a question-and-answer period.
- Vocal Ensemble/Sing with Us—We encourage singers of all levels to sing and enjoy their voices; this group is open to anyone affected by cancer, including patients, survivors, and caregivers.
- Yoga—This gentle form of exercise combines visualization with stretching to help you relax and revitalize.
Valuable Support Programs
Finding others who understand and may have been through the same experience is one of the best ways to move forward in your life. For that reason, we suggest that you participate in one of these programs.
- Woman to Woman—Sharing your experiences with another woman who has survived what you are going through is more comforting than you may imagine. We recommend that you participate in Woman to Woman, a Mount Sinai program started in 2003 by Valerie Goldfein. Valerie is an ovarian cancer survivor. Based on her personal experience as a patient, she realized the importance of connecting other women who had survived gynecologic cancer. Through this free program, a social worker will match you with other survivors who are trained volunteers.
For more information about Woman to Woman, please contact us at (212) 241-3793.
- Program for Partners—Woman to Woman also has a program for your life partner. Affected by what you are going through during treatment for gynecologic cancer, your loved one also needs support. We know from experience that our partners may feel overlooked by health care workers, family, and friends, so we offer one-to-one social work support to your life partner.
- Esperanza y Vida (Hope and Life) and the Witness Project of Harlem™—To help address the discrepancy in survival rates among minority women, Mount Sinai has community outreach programs in East Harlem and Harlem in New York City that are culturally tailored to the Latino and African American communities. We collaborate with the Department of Oncological Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. These programs provide minority women with information about prevention and early detection of breast and cervical cancer, as well as access to cancer care.
Feel the positive energy of Dr. Nagarsheth, and his band who are dedicated to raising awareness about gynecologic cancer and relieving stress
Support services empower you. For more information, please contact us at (212) 659-5525.