Successful Mentoring Means Everybody Gets Their Needs Met

BY RALPH BLUM

The matter of finding men able and willing to guide newly-diagnosed men who attend support groups requires considerable thought. Leaders often deal with very challenging situations.  For example, how does one handle the men who are attending with a single overriding need, the need to have their personal experience and their treatment decisions validated?

These “confirmation seekers” do not understand how their need for simple black and white declarations distorts the real challenges faced in selecting treatment. The reality with prostate cancer is that it is possible to have a bad outcome even though the “best” treatment may have been selected.

All prostate cancer treatments are potentially dangerous, placing a man’s quality of life in serious jeopardy.  All that the “best” treatment can offer is better odds,  a less risky alternative compared to the options. Guarantees of success are made by charlatans and believed by suckers. 

So in Lenin’s famous words, “What is to be done?”  The dilemma support group leaders face is to address the needs of all the individuals even though their needs may not relevant to the whole group. The solution came from an old friend, David Derris, a man whose decades of experience in guiding support groups have resulted in a sensitive and bias-free skill-set.

According to Dr. Derris a support group leader needs to somehow get across to the newly-diagnosed that scientific information about different treatment options only provides general guidance, not absolute answers.  How does he go about accomplishing this? Derris provides a simple solution: If the support group begins at 7 PM, he invites all new patients members come at 6 PM, an hour earlier. By providing the newly-diagnosed patients a separate session, all options can be discussed free from any pressure from the “confirmation seekers.”

Many newly-diagnosed men have a low-risk situation—a mildly elevated PSA, or a Gleason score of 3 + 3—which makes them candidates for active surveillance rather than immediate treatment. The field of active surveillance is dynamicly changing. New studies suggest that multi-parametric MRI approximates the accuracy of a needle biopsy.  These rapid changes in the way medicine is being practiced demand an open-minded approach in a collegial environment. A low pressure situation excluding the highly opinionated enables newly-diagnosed men to think more clearly and increases their self-confidence.

At the same time, no group wants to lose those experienced men, simply because their agenda includes confirmation of their own treatment decisions. These guys who have “been there, done that” and lived to tell their story have a valuable role to play as witnesses and informants. Sharing their experiences can provide long-term perspectives for the newly-diagnosed. Dr. Derris is to be commended for finding ways to ensure that all members of the group will have their needs met.

I was pleased to learn from Mark that those who now serve, or wish to serve, as support group leaders can, thanks to PCRI, sign up for a course in  “Mentoring” www.pcrimentors.org where they can learn from  the experiences of the best advocates in the field, men like “Snuffy” Myers, Mark Moyad, and John Blasko. Good news and more to come.