4th Angel Mentoring Program

Podcast Transcript

Scott Steele: Butts and Guts, a Cleveland Clinic podcast, exploring your digestive and surgical health from end to end.

Hi again, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Butts and Guts. I'm your host, Scott Steele, the Chairman of Colorectal Surgery here at the Cleveland Clinic in beautiful Cleveland, Ohio. And today, we're going to talk about a program that I'm extremely excited about and something we have not yet talked about on Butts and Guts, and that's Cleveland Clinic's 4th Angel Mentoring Program. And I'm very excited to have Mary Jones, who's a representative from Cleveland Clinic's 4th Angel Mentoring Program, here to join us on Butts and Guts. Mary, Welcome to Butts and Guts.

Mary Jones: Hi, thank you for having me.

Scott Steele: So we always like to start out a little bit about telling us about yourself, where you're from, where did you train, how to it come to the point that you wound up in the Cleveland Clinic and a part of this 4th Angel Mentoring Program?

Mary Jones: So my educational background is in psychology and healthcare administration. I've actually been with Cleveland Clinic for about 14 years where I worked in different departments, like quality and patient safety. I worked in patient experience and now I've been at the Taussig Cancer Institute for going on nine years. So right now, I'm working full time as a program coordinator with the 4th Angel Program.

Scott Steele: So let's jump right into it. And can you just give us a little bit of background and some insight as to what this 4th Angel Mentoring Program is?

Mary Jones: So this is a free national one-on-one peer mentoring program. The program offers confidential outreach and support to cancer patients and for their caregivers. We have specially trained mentors who serve as active listeners to empower patients and caregivers with knowledge, awareness, hope, and just to give them a helping hand.

Scott Steele: So what is the program for? Is it just cancer patients? Is it for caregivers? Who all is eligible and how do we get involved in this program?

Mary Jones: Really any patient or their caregiver who has been affected by a cancer diagnosis or a cancer treatment can access this program. The good news is that they can live anywhere. They can have their treatment anywhere, even outside Cleveland Clinic, and they can still access the program. So we've even had international patients contact us to be paired up with a mentor.

Scott Steele: Mary, is something that is specifically stage cancer patients all the time, as you may know. Is this only for terminal patients or we always see things like Make a wish and stuff, or is this at any stage that they can be a part of this along their cancer journey and join the program?

Mary Jones: Absolutely. Yeah, we definitely recognize that the need for support can occur at any stage. Some patients may feel ready to request a mentor right at the time of their diagnosis. Other times, patients might reach out for support in the middle of their treatment journey. We even have patients who might reach out for one-on-one support after their treatment has ended and they're into their survivorship journey. So really any time is the right time to request support.

Scott Steele: Well, I know a lot of our listeners out there may be very excited about this as well. So can anybody be an Angel Mentor? Who can be and how could people get involved with a mentorship program?

Mary Jones: That's a great question. Patient mentors are typically anybody who has completed their treatment and their at least six months post-treatment. So that's our typical guideline. We do recognize that some later stage cancer survivors might have ongoing treatment or maintenance therapy and that's okay too. But the typical guideline is that our patients are at least six months post-treatment. And then to be a caregiver mentor, the qualification is that you have cared for a loved one with cancer at some point.

So we really look for mentors who have a natural, positive outlook and supportive nature. We screen and background check all of our mentors and they complete an online or phone training course. That's their choice, to do it online or phone. But really, we look for people who can offer this unique type of support that's independent from the support that their friends and family can offer. These are people who can relate to the emotional side of going through a cancer journey because they've had similar situations themselves.

And really their chief role is to be a listener and to empathize. They're not giving medical advice or serving in a counseling role. But the good news is that during training, our mentors are offered really great resources that they can share with their mentees, if their needs ever go outside of the mentoring role.

Scott Steele: So Mary, let's jump in a little bit further into the specifics and terms of this. And so how do you guys match patients with their mentor?

Mary Jones: So really there are two ways that somebody can request a mentor. A patient can call or email the program, where they would speak with a program coordinator. It would either be myself or my coworker, Carrie. Where we would have a conversation and gather specific information about their diagnosis, their treatment, and really what are they looking for in a mentor. So then the coordinator will select a mentor who matches based on their diagnosis, their staging, the type of treatment they're going through, age, gender, really just trying to make the best match possible.

And then we connect the two by phone or by email. The other way to request a mentor is to go to our website where a mentee can create an online profile and they can do their own search of our online mentors. And then they can request and chat through the website if they prefer that way.

Scott Steele: So I imagine this might differ a little bit between the mentor and the patient itself, but what type of time commitment and what does this all involve? Is it something where they meet every day, every week, once a month? I know that probably may vary depending on the personalities involved, but can you give a little bit more kind of generalizations or even specifics about that?

Mary Jones: Yeah, for sure. And I would say that every mentor/mentee relationship is unique to the two who are matched together. So sometimes patients really want to have ongoing support where they could speak with their mentor a couple of times a week or check in with them after every treatment. Other times people may just want to have one or two conversations and ask a few questions about what to expect from surgery or what are some recovery tips that worked well for you. So I really like to say that it's individualized based on what the patient needs and how much support they really want. So the mentor is aware that it could be a short term relationship or it could be an ongoing mentoring relationship.

Scott Steele: So Mary, the world is a smaller place. And especially as we're talking about the virtual aspects and platforms that have become so prominent, even as we're on today, does that mentor have to live here in Northeast Ohio? Can they live anywhere in the world and can a person have more than one mentor?

Mary Jones: Well, anyone can be a mentor no matter where they live or where they're treated. So the volunteer onboarding process can be done virtually. So I mentioned before we do a background check and we offer an online training course. So yeah, they do not have to be local to Northeast Ohio. Again, we've had people reach out from outside of the country that we've been able to train and we've also been able to match them with support as well.

Scott Steele: Do you have, without maybe giving away some HIPAA type information, any memorable patient or mentor stories you can share with us that maybe show the impact or highlight the impact of this tremendous program?

Mary Jones: Yes, we have a lot of examples. I'll share two. It was about a year or two ago. We matched two men who had the same diagnosis. The patient mentee was just starting his treatment and we matched him with a mentor who went through the exact same treatment several years back. So they connected via phone and email for a few months. It turns out they discovered they had so much in common. They were both widowed. They had similar hobbies. They both were coffee enthusiastic. So pre COVID, they ended up meeting weekly at a local coffee shop and they just became such close friends and started to talk about things outside of their cancer experience. And they are still in touch and very close friends to this day. So we just love hearing when the mentoring relationship becomes more than just talking about cancer and talking about treatment. So that was definitely a memorable one.

There's another example and this goes above and beyond. There was a woman who had actually connected with her mentor for a few months, and she found out that her mentee was going to be having her first chemo treatment all alone. So she really had limited support. She didn't have much friends or family members to help her during this time. Her mentor actually traveled out of state to sit with her and to be with her so that she didn't have to be alone during her first treatment. So those kinds of things just really stand out and can show what type of relationship can develop from something like this.

Scott Steele: That's absolutely fantastic stuff. And just obviously shows the human side of things, the great side of people. So how has this program had to adapt since the COVID-19 pandemic and how do you see this program going ahead in the future?

Mary Jones: So we've actually been really lucky during this pandemic in the fact that we've always been able to connect people around the country and around the world, even through phone and email. So the communication piece really hasn't changed. I would say the only adapting we've had to do would be we've had to make some adjustments to the duties that the coordinators do, like working remotely. But really for the most part, we've been able to maintain our regular program procedures. And another good piece is that our training course, it's an online course that anyone can take from anywhere. So they don't have to be here in person. We're just able to offer it wherever.

And as far as the program growing in the future, so we're always growing. We're always training new mentors. I really see the program continuing to expand, reach to patients and caregivers in areas where they might not have as much support. That's the good thing about it, is that they can have support over the phone and be in the comfort of their own home.

Another thing, we really strive to be a global leader in providing this type of cancer related peer support. We work with some other programs and really just want to contribute to research that currently shows that patient wellbeing is actually increased by having a one-on-one mentor. So we look forward to just growing and adding new mentors to our database.

Scott Steele: So kind of along those lines, Mary, if somebody out there is listening either as a participant or wanting to be a member, how should they go about doing so?

Mary Jones: So give us a call or email us. We have a toll free number, which is 866.520.3197. Our local number is 216.445.8734. You can email the program at 4thangel@ccf.org. And then I mentioned our website where we have the online mentoring aspect of it. It's www.4thangel.org.

Scott Steele: And that's fantastic stuff. And so, Mary, a final take home message for our listeners.

Mary Jones: If you want more information about the Cleveland Clinic's 4th Angel Mentoring Program, please give us a call. It's, again, 216.445.8734. The website is 4thangel.ccf.org. And that's the number, 4th Angel. So it's 4 T-H A-N-G-E-L .ccf.org.

And finally, please remember in times like these, it's important for you and your family to continue to receive medical care. Rest assured, the Cleveland Clinic, we're taking all the necessary precautions to sterilize our facilities and protect our patients.

Scott Steele: Yeah. That's fantastic stuff. And so, as all my listeners out there know, we'd like to wind up with some quick hitters to get to know our guest a little bit better. And so, Mary, for you, what's your favorite food?

Mary Jones: Oh my gosh. Favorite food. Okay. I'm just going to go with the classic pizza. I can never turn that down.

Scott Steele: That's great. And mine too. What's your favorite sport?

Mary Jones: I'm not huge on watching sports, but I love playing volleyball.

Scott Steele: Fantastic. What's your favorite book of all time?

Mary Jones: Oh my gosh. That is a really good question. My favorite book of all time, I can't think of the title right now. Oh, I think it's called My Sister's Keeper. It has to do with a little girl who ends up having leukemia and I'm not going to give anything away if people haven't heard it, but just the struggles and the triumphs that her family goes through.

Scott Steele: And then finally, tell us something that you like being here in Northeast Ohio.

Mary Jones: Oh my gosh. There's so many things. I like, believe it or not, I like the weather. I like having the different seasons. I enjoy outdoor things in the winter and summer. I like the changes. I love the restaurant scene, when we were able to go, and just being on the lake and all the beautiful metro parks and nature that this area has to offer.

Scott Steele: Yeah. So we're in agreement with that. And as Mary said, for more information on Cleveland Clinic's 4th Angel Mentoring Program, you can call that 216.445.8734 number, or you can also visit the website at 4thangel.ccf.org. And again, that's 4, the letter T-H, A-N-G-E-L .ccf.org. Mary, thanks so much for joining us here on Butts and Guts.

Mary Jones: Thank you.

Scott Steele: That wraps things up here at Cleveland Clinic. Until next time, thanks for listening to Butts and Guts.