ABSTRACT
Medical professional researchers and the public at large are in general agreement that cancer is one of the most feared, destructive, lethal, and dehumanizing diseases known to humankind (Armstrong, 2004; Schlesinger, 1985). It involves treatable and reversible conditions as well as circumstances that lead to periods of extensive trauma and rapid death. This puzzling plague poses a significant threat to an individual’s well-being, and in its final stage it is often accompanied by intractable and excruciating pain, the most feared aspect of the disease (The Mayday Pain Project, 2001; Macfarlane, McBeth, Silman, & Crombie, 2001; National Cancer Institute, 2005; World Health Organization, 2005). Due to the seriousness of the cancer epidemic, a coalition of health professionals, including medical dosime-trists (pronounced do-sim-e-trists), who are members of radiation oncology treatment planning teams, have been called upon to help combat this life-endangering affliction that threatens a patient’s total bodily integrity and presents biopsychosocial problems.
