From November 2 to December 19, 2019 IPOS organised the first pilot Psycho-Oncology Upskilling Training for psychiatrists, psychologist, counsellors and mental health nurses in Turkey. The training was completed in a total of 36 hours and was the first short training program in psycho-oncology that has an integrated supervised placement component in Turkey, which is accredited and recognised by a higher education institute; Istanbul Aydin University.

The aim of this course is to understand cancer, to gain communication skills to support patients and their caregivers in all stages of treatment, to be equipped with psycho-oncological measurement tools and introduce intervention methods, as well as to obtain ethical information about the treatment processes. In the training, differences of paediatric and adult oncology have been distinguished and delivered by the comprehensive multidisciplinary team which are the members of the Psycho-Oncology Association; Psychiatrist Muzaffer Uyar, Health Psychologist Ozan Bahcivan, Specialist Psychologists Elif Ozluk and Zeynep Yazici, Oncologist Basak Adali Aksoy as well as Oncology Nurse Rabia Tulubas.

Trainees showed great interest to the program, and received positive feedbacks, such as; “I’m so glad to take this course as it provided me the core knowledge about psycho-oncology.”

We thank all the trainees, Istanbul Aydin University and Medical Park Bahcelievler Hospital for their cooperation, and IPOS Education committee for their assistance in the developmental of learning materials. We hope to offer this program again in 2020 to the wider health care professionals, such as for social workers.