Nov 2020 – Nov 2022 · 2 yrs · Remote

• Provided psychological counselling services to the patients and their caregivers. Addressed their physical, emotional, & psychological needs.
• Collaborated with the multidisciplinary healthcare team regarding the patient’s plan of care to promote the best possible outcomes and patient/family experience.
• Written pertinent content articles on a regular basis with the patients and their families or for the company's website/social media handles.
• Developed the psycho-social plan of care as an intricate part of the Oncology plan of care for patients being provided care management services by onco.com.
• Collaborated with other functions to provide holistic psychological support to the family. Provided a psycho-social assessment on each patient to guide the plan of care and to communicate to the care management team pertinent issues to consider.
• Established a counselling process with documentation of activities performed at each step of the way so as to standardize psychological counselling protocols for cancer patients being served by the company.

Jan 2018 – Oct 2018 · 9 mos · New Delhi, Delhi, India · On-site

• Consulted psycho-social issues of cancer patients and their caregivers while they are on chemotherapy.
• Provided cessation services for tobacco users and conducted three monthly support group meetings in order to share their experience once they quit the habit.

Sep 2017 – Dec 2017 · 3 mos

• Established the Psycho-oncology unit, followed and customized the NCCN guidelines on managing psychosocial issues, while ensuring the cultural and religious aspects, thereby resulting in better quality of life of patients and caretakers.
• Consulted for managing high levels of psychological distress of 100+ patients using cognitive behavioural therapeutic techniques visibly impacting the levels of satisfaction of patients.
• Organized support group meetings to comprehensively understand the psychosocial issues and accordingly psycho-educate about treatment related issues, thereby enhancing the treatment compliance and decreasing the mortality rate.
• Designed and implemented a successful community awareness program at panchayat level to eradicate myths and misconceptions about cancer through various dissemination strategies.
• Coordinated with Care Foundation and KERALA-CAN in an initiative (TV-Programme) to raise the awareness amongst Malayalee communities across the world, about screening and early detection of breast cancer as part of breast cancer awareness month.
• Co-organised and delivered classes to health-care professionals including doctors on tobacco cessation using supporting scientific evidences.

Apr 2017 – Aug 2017 · 4 mos · Chennai Area, India

• Spearheaded development of a new tobacco cessation and lymphedema clinic for assisting tobacco users quit, lymphedema patients restore function, and reduce physical and psychological suffering respectively.
• Co-investigated research projects and conducted focus group discussions.
• Led administration and scoring of various diagnostic instruments for assessing anxiety, confidence, motivation, personality and IQ among elite athletes thereby resulting in improved performance.

Jan 2016 – Aug 2016 · 7 mos · Chennai Area, India

• • Administered psychological testing and scoring of various diagnostic instruments for inpatient psychiatric population and provided intensive behavioural training for ADHD, Autism, CD & LD children below 7yrs.

Jun 2015 – Mar 2017 · 1 yr 9 mos · Chennai Area, India

• Assisted and trained under Dr. E Vidhubala, a tobacco cessation expert, in tobacco cessation therapy and conducted scientific research among tobacco users to assess the prevalence of tobacco use after diagnosis.
• Assessed 400+ patients with individual psychotherapy/cognitive retraining for psychological distress, depression, anxiety, cognitive changes such as delirium, chemo brain and ICU induced psychosis to improve their quality of life.
• Facilitated various support groups for Pre-chemo orientation, Pre-radiation orientation, Tobacco cessation, CML, Stoma Support including Women’s Cancer Survivor group.
• Collaborated with multi-disciplinary teams to deliver the Bad news, and provided grief & bereavement counselling for the caretakers in the palliative settings.
• Provided pre and post-operative counselling for colorectal, osteosarcoma, laryngeal and breast cancer patients to reduce fear and anxiety resulting in patients’ positive approach towards treatment.
• Conducted multidisciplinary research across departments to access the quality of life pre and post treatment, presented scientific articles.

Jun 2014 – Mar 2015 · 9 mos · Bangalore

• • Assisted the first psycho-oncologist in India, Dr. Brinda Sitharam and observed psychotherapeutic sessions, family therapy and monitored neurological assessments.