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Your

Team

Your Partners on the Journey to Survivorship.

Meet the dedicated nurses, dietitians, social workers, and cancer experts who make up your team and work collaboratively with the Nassif Community Cancer Center to win the fight against cancer.

Care Coordinator

Your Care Coordinator is a constant point of contact throughout your cancer journey, from diagnosis through treatment and beyond. Your coordinator will assess your needs and set up referrals within the team, including social workers, dietitians, psychiatry, pastoral care, exercise specialist and more. Care Coordinators are a great resource because they pull together the programs and services available within the healthcare system as well as those available throughout the community. Most importantly, your Care Coordinator is here to listen, offering emotional support to you and your family and caregivers. Think of your Care Coordinator as a partner who is focused on your unique, individual care. Be honest with your Care Coordinator so they can make the appropriate referrals to support and enhance your care.

Meeting with Your Care Coordinator

Download Questions For Your Care Coordinator to help you understand what concerns to share with your coordinator so they can better meet your needs. You are not on this journey alone.

What Does a Care Coordinator Do?

  • Serve as a point of contact for you, your family, and friends
  • Facilitate coordination and timeliness of your care—ensuring the right place, right time, and right team members
  • Communicate with all team members involved with your care, including physicians
  • Provides education, insight, and support as to how cancer affects your life. This allows you to prepare for changing needs and the possible impact on your physical and emotional states
  • Identify your needs and connect you with the appropriate services

Our Care Coordinators

Oncology Social Worker

Support is available for you from a licensed counselor with a specialized certification to work with cancer patients and their families. She will provide emotional support to help you and your family cope with the changes in your lives, including addressing the specific support needs of your family caregivers and children/teens to improve your quality of life. She can also help connect you to community resources, address financial concerns and assist you with advance directives.

Our Oncology Social Workers

Cancer Exercise Specialist

We’re happy to have an exercise specialist on staff to help you with maintaining or regaining strength, stability and overall physical wellness. Individualized plans are developed according to your current health needs and your current treatment plan. Sessions can be one-on-one or small group settings.

Our Cancer Exercise Specialist

Genetic Professional

Our genetic professionals will provide you with cancer risk assessment screening, genetic counseling and testing, and will help you understand the medical and psychological issues of having an inherited cancer. They can also provide insight on how genetic cancers affect the rest of your family. Take our genetic testing questionnaire to see if you could benefit from a consultation with one of our genetic professionals.

Our Genetic Professionals

photo of Alyssa Grissom
Genetic Counseling & Testing, Cancer Risk Assessment

Grissom, Alyssa

MSN, APRN, AGCNS, AOCNS

Certified Sex Therapist / Body Image Specialist

A counselor can meet with you to address how you view your body and changes that may have occurred as this can affect both your body image and intimacy. She can also help address treatment side effects of sexual dysfunction such as loss of desire, pain with intercourse and erectile dysfunction. To schedule an appointment with certified sex therapist, please contact your Care Coordinator.

Our Therapists

Oncology Certified Dietitian

Our dietitians will be available to assess your nutritional status and design a nutrition plan to meet your needs. They offer counseling and support to help reduce side effects, and provide information on developing and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Our Oncology Certified Dietitians

Healing Energy Worker

A new addition to our integrative wellness program in 2019, Healing Energy Work is a complement to modern medicine where the healer channels positive to the patients, activating their natural healing process. Our healing energy worker, Marion Patterson, uses her expertise in Healing Touch Spiritual Ministry, Integrative Energy Therapy, Reiki, and Veriditas Labyrinth to provide a healing presence for cancer patients, survivors and caregivers.

Our Healing Energy Worker

Massage Therapists

Massage therapy can be used to treat common side effects of chemotherapy and radiation; such as neuropathy, fatigue, post-surgical muscle pain, or general emotional strain. Our licensed massage therapists are trained to work with cancer patients to provide a beneficial holistic treatment option.

Our Massage Therapists

Acupuncturist

Our resident acupuncturist is Dr. Nancy Lorenzini, who also practices anesthesiology with Linn County Anesthesiologists in Cedar Rapids. After completing her anesthesiology training she later began her medical acupuncture coursework with the Stanford-affiliated Helms Medical Institute. She is now a member of the American Academy of Medical Acupuncture. She practices the traditional form of acupuncture in which thin needles are used to stimulate pressure points throughout the body.

Our Acupuncturist

Have You Been Recently Diagnosed?

The Nassif Community Cancer Center provides a personalized care plan and a devoted team of specialists at your side. Because when you see cancer, we see you. Call us today at (319) 558-4876.