Re-entry: the educational needs of the cancer survivor.

Long- and short-term cancer survivorship presents a variety of problems of readjustment and readaptation to nonmorbid life. Foremost among these problems are the fear of recurrence, learning to live with compromise, and economic and social shunning. Since most of these problems are predictable events in the recovery phase, it is proposed that educational interventions be developed and used systematically in order to buffer the worst aspects of these experiences and promote mental as well as physical healing in the cancer patient.