Cancer Care Navigators
Our cancer care navigators are here to support, encourage and guide you through your entire cancer journey, beginning with your diagnosis, through treatment and into survivorship.
Our patient care navigation service, offered by Pardee Cancer Center at no charge, pairs each patient with a registered nurse navigator. The nurse navigator helps identify barriers to care for patients and their caregiver support system. Pardee Cancer Center’s nurse navigators serve as educators, advocates and support resources for you and your loved ones. The navigators work on your behalf to coordinate care between members of the care team. They make referrals to physicians or support services to ensure that all your needs – medical, social, financial and emotional – are met.
You will meet your nurse navigator at one of your initial appointments with your doctor. Your navigator will provide you with contact information and guide you through your cancer journey, offering valuable advice, explaining your disease and treatments, and suggesting available resources to help you overcome obstacles impacting your financial, emotional or social state.
Leann Noakes, RN, CCRP
Cancer Care Navigator
828-698-7317
Leann has been with Pardee for over 15 years and began working as a Cancer Navigator in 2013. She plays an important role as a navigator, supporting, encouraging, and guiding patients through their cancer journey, beginning with diagnosis, through treatment, and into survivorship.
Marche' Tucker, BSN, RN, CPAN, CAPA
Breast Cancer Care Navigator
828-698-7334
In her 34 years as a nurse at Pardee, Marche worked in critical care, but after being diagnosed with breast cancer herself, she decided to change course. She works with breast cancer patients and their families to support, encourage, and guide them through their treatment process, beginning with diagnosis, through treatment, and into survivorship.
Other Resources and Support
There is so much more to cancer care than receiving treatment and follow up appointments. At Pardee Cancer Center, we attend to the “whole you” – not only by giving the most advanced medical care, but by addressing the emotional, psychological, and financial challenges that may surface with a cancer diagnosis.
Cancer Conference
A multidisciplinary group of physicians and clinicians meet weekly to discuss unusual and difficult cancer types. This group anonymously reviews specific patient cases to gather unique perspectives regarding patient care. These weekly conferences benefit our patients by having more than 30 physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals reviewing their care to offer the best treatment plan with best possible outcome
Support Services
Pardee Cancer Center offers a range of comprehensive services to support those undergoing cancer treatment. Our support team includes a certified oncology dietitian, a specially trained oncology pharmacist, speech-language pathologists (therapists), a social worker, and certified spiritual care chaplains.
Social Worker
A social worker is a licensed professional who is trained to identify social and emotional needs of people affected by cancer. They can provide emotional support and help patients and their families access practical assistance to meet their needs. To speak to our social worker please call (828) 698-7364.
Certified Oncology Dietitian
Pardee Cancer Center has a certified oncology dietitian on staff to help patients and their families manage the nutritional challenges that can arise from cancer treatment and can threaten a patient’s overall health. This specialized dietitian works to optimize your nutritional intake during treatment, plan meals to minimize common symptoms and side effects, and guide you with post-treatment tips to ensure a healthy-eating lifestyle to decrease the risk of cancer recurrence.
Oncology Pharmacist
With advances in chemotherapy and biotherapy to treat cancer, the role of the pharmacist has grown increasingly important. Pardee Cancer Center has a specially trained oncology pharmacist, who works with the clinical care team and formulates effective chemotherapy and biotherapy regimens for our patients, based on their type of cancer and their personal biological factors. The oncology pharmacist also manages potential medication interactions and makes recommendations to minimize the side effects of chemotherapy, biotherapy and other treatments.
Speech Therapist
Cancer and cancer treatment can affect your speech and ability to swallow. Pardee Cancer Center has speech-language pathologists, known commonly as speech therapists, to help you overcome these impairments. These therapists diagnose speech and swallowing problems and teach patients exercises and techniques to improve speech and swallowing abilities.
Chaplain
Pardee Cancer Center’s chaplain provides spiritual and emotional support for patients and their families. The chaplain offers prayer, sacraments and blessings, guidance with health care ethics and assistance with advanced directives and connects patients with community-based clergy, if necessary.
Financial Navigation
Following a cancer diagnosis, focus can quickly shift from a health crisis to a financial crisis and add a layer of stress to patients and their families. Pardee Cancer Center has a financial navigator available to answer questions about insurance coverage and guide patients who need financial assistance to available resources offered in the hospital and in the community.
Financial Navigator
Pardee Cancer Center's financial navigator provides pre-service estimates, screens patients for NC Medicaid and UNC Financial Assistance eligibility, processes Financial Assistance cases, assists patients in obtaining available grants, copay and foundation assistance, answers billing questions, and offers benefit investigation and patient counseling. To reach the financial navigator, call 828-694-8028.
