What work does the Walther Center for Supportive Oncology do?
The Walther Center for Supportive Oncology at the IU Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center focuses on three areas, which work together and often overlap:
- Palliative care: Managing symptoms like pain, fatigue, nausea and helping with advance care planning. This care is provided by doctors, advanced practice providers, nurses, and navigators.
- Psycho-oncology: Supporting emotional and mental health, including depression and anxiety, and developing coping strategies. Psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and clergy provide psycho-oncology support.
- Integrative medicine/rehabilitation: Helping with symptoms and wellness through treatments like acupuncture, exercise, meditation, nutrition and music therapy, provided by exercise experts, dietitians, nurses, and medical providers.
The center works with people of all ages, from diagnosis to survivorship to end of life.
The center, established through a transformative $14 million gift from the Walther Cancer Foundation to IU in 2018, integrates both research and clinical care.
Researchers Shelley Johns, PsyD, ABPP, Walther Scholar in Psycho-Oncology, and Sheri Robb, PhD, Walther Professor of Supportive Oncology, focus on improving the physical health and psychological well-being of adults with cancer as well as the impact of music therapy on children and adolescents with cancer.
The center’s clinical care is led by Tarah Ballinger, MD — the Vera Bradley Foundation Scholar in Breast Cancer Research at IU School of Medicine and a cancer center physician-scientist — who serves as medical director of the Walther Center. Ballinger is also medical director of the MOVE (Multidisciplinary Oncology Vitality and Exercise) program.
Clinical care is delivered by IU Health and includes the offerings of the CompleteLife program — a comprehensive program that attends to the body, mind and spirit of the whole person.
