Lifestyle Medicine Group Visits

Any patient of the Mass General Cancer Center who has concluded treatment and who is on chronic maintenance therapy for cancer can participate in this program.

Lifestyle Medicine is the use of evidence-based lifestyle approaches including a whole food plant predominant eating pattern, regular physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substances and behaviors, and positive social connections to prevent, treat and manage chronic disease.

Visits are virtual and will be conducted on Zoom. The Zoom link for the visit will be sent inside a message via Patient Gateway ahead of the visit. The Zoom link will not be attached to the visit as is done with a typical virtual visit. The program includes 6 visits. Visits are scheduled every 1st and 2nd Thursday of the month from 11-12:15pm (75 minutes). Please arrive on time and plan to stay for the entire visit.

In each of the six group visits, our multidisciplinary team of cancer care providers who are also experts in lifestyle medicine will meet with up to 10 patients to share education, tools and resources on at least one topic of Lifestyle Medicine. During the visits, providers will conduct individual check-ins with each patient as well as facilitate group discussion.

Group Visit Topic Cycle:

• Exercise for Wellness and Recovery: Learn about the science that supports exercise to prevent, treat and help manage chronic disease including cancer, and how attitude impacts health behaviors. Share and learn tips and resources to help start and stick with an exercise program. Exercise tip sheet (pdf).
• Nutrition in Cancer Care: Learn the evidence-based nutrition recommendations for cancer prevention, risk reduction, and to help manage cancer-related side effects. Create specific, measurable, action oriented, realistic, and time sensitive (SMART) goals to help you realize the vision of health and well-being most meaningful to you. Nutrition tip sheet (pdf). SMART goal tip sheet (pdf).
• Starting and Sticking with Healthy Habits: Learn about tools to make healthy behavior changes attainable, exciting and enjoyable. Avoiding harmful substances tip sheet (pdf). Variety tip sheet (pdf).
• Better Sleep More Energy: Learn about the importance of restorative sleep, and tips and resources to improve your sleep routine. Discuss sources of energy, and gain awareness of the types of substances, activities or interactions that may increase or decrease your stores. Sleep tip sheet (pdf). Energy tip sheet (pdf).
• Stress Management Tips and Tools: Learn about the relaxation response and helpful tools to incorporate mindfulness into your daily life to reduce the harmful effects of stress. Stress management tip sheet (pdf).
• Making Meaning: Social Connections and Purpose: Learn about the roles of social support and purpose in overall health, as well as adopting and sticking with healthy behaviors. Social connections tip sheet (pdf).

A virtual group visit care delivery model offers an informative, supportive and interactive environment to learn the skills that will help you to make lasting healthy behavior changes.

You may choose to start with any visit topic (first available topic visit that fits your schedule) but are encouraged to schedule and attend all 6 program topic visits. Our scheduling team will help you book into available dates. The schedule is available on our website. Should you need to cancel, please reschedule for a later date the topic is offered in order to not miss the content.

Patients will need a referral from their oncology team to be booked into the program. The Lifestyle Medicine Group Visits Program is billable to insurance; most insurances cover these visits in the context of the cancer diagnosis.

Please email mghccsupportivecare@partners.org with any questions about the program.

Lifestyle Medicine group visits are billed to your insurance just as a regular oncology follow-up appointment would be. Please check with your insurance provider to determine your co-pay.