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Medical Ethics: Schwartz Center Rounds

Hope

Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology-Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Key Words. Oncology • Support • Psychosocial • Cancer

Correspondence: Richard T. Penson, M.R.C.P., M.D., Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology-Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Yawkey 9066, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02114-2617, USA. Telephone: 617-726-5867; Fax: 617-724-6898; e-mail: rpenson{at}partners.org

Disclosure: No potential conflicts of interest were reported by the authors, planners, reviewers, or staff managers of this article.

Shortly before his death in 1995, Kenneth B. Schwartz, a cancer patient at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), founded The Kenneth B. Schwartz Center at MGH. The Schwartz Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting and advancing compassionate health care delivery that provides hope to the patient, support to caregivers, and encourages the healing process. The Center sponsors the Schwartz Center Rounds, a monthly multidisciplinary forum where caregivers reflect on important psychosocial issues faced by patients, their families, and their caregivers, and gain insight and support from fellow staff members.

A patient with recurrent ovarian cancer, now in a 12-year remission after recurrence, and her surgeon, discussed their experiences and feelings around the hopes and fears of cancer and its treatment. Hope sustains many through dark times, and is at the core of the wonderful resilience of many who wrestle with cancer. Concerns about false hope, unrealistic expectations, assumptions, engaging in realistic hopefulness, and the joys and stresses embodied in hope and how they frame the caregiver–patient relationship are discussed. The literature and limited evidence base are reviewed.

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