Melanoma patient educator and counselor at one of the country's leading melanoma treatment and research centers. Available for telephone consultations with melanoma patients and family members. For newly-diagnosed melanoma patients and for patients with recurrent melanoma. Information and support concerning metastatic melanoma and melanoma clinical trials.

Who Am I?
I am the patient educator and clinical psychologist at the Melanoma Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The Melanoma Center is part of the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center. Over the last 20 years, I have met individually with over 6,500 melanoma patients, and each week I meet with five or six new patients. Usually the patient's spouse or other family members also participate in these meetings.

I meet with patients in the course of their initial visit to the UCSF Melanoma Center. My role is to help patients gain a better understanding about their diagnosis and the medical treatments, and to provide support and guidance to patients and their families in coping with melanoma and the many stresses and uncertainties it creates. I also participate in the weekly case conference in which all of the specialists on our melanoma team put their heads together in assessing each new case and in formulating individually-tailored treatment plans.

The patients I’ve worked with represent a wide diversity of medical situations and emotional reactions. The challenges faced by these patients are probably similar to those confronting you and your family. I believe I can help you just as I have helped them. I have also learned from these patients about what it is like to be dealing with melanoma and about ways of approaching problems that have worked well for them. I can pass along what I've learned from them to you.

How I Can Help You
If you have been diagnosed with melanoma, or if the melanoma has spread, you are probably trying to sort things out, understand what it all means, keep your wits about you, and gain some direction for how to proceed. Here's how I can help:

• I can help you understand the medical aspects of your case and the rationale for the various treatment options that apply to you. (However, I do not give advice about which treatments are right for you.)
• I can explain information from the pathology report on themelanoma removed from your skin. The risk of recurrence in your case could be as low as 2% or as high as 70%. It depends on certain features of the primary lesion. I can explain all this to you.
• There are new treatments for melanoma, such as the sentinel lymph node biopsy procedure, alpha interferon, and gamma-knife radiation therapy. There are also vaccine treatments and other clinical trials to consider. I can provide background on these treatments that will help you in discussing these options with your physician.
• I can provide personal support and guidance to you in dealing with the emotional impact of melanoma in potentially constructive ways. Research has shown that how you cope with the stresses of melanoma can affect your immune response, which in turn can affect your survival. It has been shown that some ways coping are better than others in this regard. I can help in applying this research to your individual situation.
• As you know, cancer has an impact on your entire family and creates a need for emotional sharing and mutual support. You might also be struggling with what to tell your children and how to best help them with their own anxieties and reactions to your illness. I have counseled hundreds of families in dealing with these issues, and would hope to help you and your family as well..
• I am the author of comprehensive literature reviews on stress and cancer, the relation of psychological factors and medical outcomes in cancer, and positive coping strategies. I have also published articles on the role of spirituality and guided imagery in dealing with cancer, on overcoming depression, and on the psychological challenges facing melanoma patients. I can help you to apply this information to your individual situation.
• You have probably been encouraged to pursue this or that alternative therapy or to adopt a holistic approach to healing. I can help you sort out what makes sense to do in this area.

I provide 30-minute consultations over the phone. I talk with many patients only once, which is often adequate to address their needs and concerns. Others want two or three telephone sessions, or to talk every week for awhile.

My phone number at the Melanoma Center is
415-885-7585.

Please leave a message on my voice mail, indicating some good times to call you back and the time zone you are calling from. I will return your call within 24 hours. When I call you back, we may be able to talk for 30 minutes at that time. If not, we will arrange a more convenient time.

Instead of calling, you can email me with some good times for me to call you back. I check my email daily.

Contact Me
akneier@itsa.ucsf.edu

If you wish to obtain information about the UCSF Melanoma Center, or schedule an appointment, please call 415-353-9888.

Fee
The fee for a 30-minute consultation is $85 and is paid to the UCSF Mount Zion Auxiliary. The Auxiliary provides supportive care services to our melanoma patients and their families. After our phone consultation, I will ask that you send a check, payable to the UCSF Mount Zion Auxiliary, to me at: Andrew Kneier, PhD, UCSF Melanoma Center, UCSF Box 1706, San Francisco, CA 94143-1706.

Read Dr. Kneier's book chapter, Coping with Melanoma