Supportive care program, pain service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Advanced cancer patients being cared for at home, with severe pain and multiple symptoms, strain the resources of individual community practitioners and family members. Supportive care programs, such as that developed by the Pain Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York), with good communication and liaison work between hospital and community, add a much needed dimension to pain and symptom control for these patients and their families, as well as ongoing support to community physicians and nurses.