The Hope Coach

In 1992 Anne McNerney was an insurance company executive and the mother of four children under the age of five, including two-year-old twins. One day she found herself racing between hospitals: her husband was in one with a broken neck from a work accident; her son was in another with a serious lung disease. "I said, 'What else could go wrong?'" recalls Anne. "Two months later I got the answer."

Anne was diagnosed with breast cancer. She received six different types of chemotherapy and underwent surgery and radiation. Gradually, her husband and son improved, and, "as my hair started to grow back, my life grew back, too," she says. After returning to work, Anne decided that what she really wanted was to stay home with the kids. She resigned from her job to be a full-time mom.

But after a while she became antsy. Anne's husband suggested that she volunteer at the hospital in Baltimore where she had been treated. "I volunteered so much the staff said, 'Give this woman a job—she's here all the time!'" Anne says.

Four years ago Anne took that job. She now works as a patient navigator in a rapidly growing field composed of social workers, nurses, and lay people—many of whom are cancer survivors themselves—who are advocates for newly diagnosed cancer patients (or others with ongoing, serious medical conditions). Navigators steer patients through the healthcare maze by connecting them to services and resources in the hospital and the local community, coordinating treatment schedules, expediting medical appointments, explaining issues, coaching them on questions to ask the doctor, arranging transportation to treatments if necessary, locating support groups, demystifying health insurance and prescription reimbursement, and acting as a sympathetic and empowering ear.