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. 2025 Jan 17:19:1828.
doi: 10.3332/ecancer.2025.1828. eCollection 2025.

Pioneering psycho-oncology: A collaborative journey for medical and psychology students at e cancer-Tata Medical Center Kolkata Psycho-oncology Congress 2024

Soumitra Shankar Datta  1   2   3 , Heena Sheth  1   4 , Sharmili Ghosh  1   5 , Srijan Das  6   7 , Jigeesha Ghosh  1   8 , Dishari Choudhury  1   9 , Arnab Mukherjee  1   10 , Soumita Ghose  11   12 , Romy Biswas  13 , Maria Castrillo Gil  14 , Carlos Andres Gamboa Alfaro  14 , Mary Guevara  14 , Danny Burke  14 , Sujit Sarkhel  15   16 , Jai Ranjan Ram  17
Affiliations

Pioneering psycho-oncology: A collaborative journey for medical and psychology students at e cancer-Tata Medical Center Kolkata Psycho-oncology Congress 2024

Soumitra Shankar Datta et al. Ecancermedicalscience. .

Abstract

Psycho-oncology is an upcoming specialisation that encompasses the psychological and social aspects of cancer care. In an integrated psycho-oncology service, consultant psychiatrists and clinical psychologists come together with other professionals to treat comorbid psychiatric disorders of cancer patients and their caregivers. Psycho-oncologists also contribute to improving clinician-patient communication, address staff burnout and conduct translational research. The ecancer-Tata Medical Center Kolkata Psycho-oncology Congress, 2024 was an initiative to encourage multi-disciplinary learning in undergraduate and postgraduate medical and psychology students and early career professionals. Written feedback from 106 participants who comprised 71% (71%, 106/149) of the pre-registered delegates, showed that the overwhelming majority found the overall experience as 'excellent' (75/106, 70.75%) or 'good' (27/106, 25%). The qualitative free-text feedback expressed the desire for longer psycho-oncology conferences 'spread over two days', eagerness to learn about qualitative and quantitative 'research methods' and specific therapeutic techniques used to treat common psychiatric comorbidities in cancer patients. A video providing an overview of the event is available here: https://ecancer.org/en/video/12232-reflections-after-the-ecancer-tata-medical-center-kolkata-psycho-oncology-congress-2024. This event generated a set of educational videos on psycho-oncology that are available online here: https://ecancer.org/en/conference/1551-ecancer-tmc-kolkata-psycho-oncology-congress.

Keywords: India; LMICs; cancer; oncology; psychiatry; psycho-oncology; psychology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declared they have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Collated feedback from participants of past psycho-oncology workshops conducted in 2023–24 at Tata Medical Center, Kolkata.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Registered delegates of the ecancer Tata Medical Center, Kolkata Psycho-oncology Congress 2024 from various institutions of India.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.. Quantitative feedback from the participants of ecancer TMC Kolkata Psycho-oncology Congress 2024.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.. Faculty and delegates of the ecancer-Psycho-oncology Congress 2024.
Video 1.
Video 1.. Dr P Arun, Chief Executive Officer of Tata Medical Center Trust, Kolkata, spoke on the long-standing partnership between Tata Medical Center, Kolkata and ecancer Global Foundation (https://ecancer.org/en/video/12231-the-long-standing-partnership-between-tata-medical-center-kolkata-and-ecancer-global-foundation).
Video 2.
Video 2.. Reflections after the ecancer Tata Medical Center, Kolkata Psycho-oncology congress 2024 by the participants and Dr Soumitra S Datta, the congress chair (https://ecancer.org/en/video/12232-reflections-after-the-ecancer-tata-medical-center-kolkata-psycho-oncology-congress-2024).
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