Look behind Kathleen McBeth's easy smile and air of calm serenity and you'll find a focused intensity and an unwavering commitment to helping cancer patients and their caregivers. A ten-year lymphoma survivor, McBeth was inspired by her own experience to return to school and become a licensed psychologist, concentrating on health psychology and adjustment to illness.

With a firsthand understanding of the fear, uncertainty, and emotional roller-coaster that follow a cancer diagnosis, McBeth helps patients develop coping strategies to deal with a range of issues in her role as a psychologist and coordinator of the Cancer Patient Support Program at Fletcher Allen.

In times of distress and crisis, ensuring patients have multiple options helps them maintain better psychological health, says McBeth. She not only talks with patients, she listens, working to help patients gain an improved ability to communicate with family and clinicians and cope with potential job loss, self image, grief and death.

"When I was diagnosed, I needed to see someone who had come out the other side of the long tunnel I found myself in," admits McBeth. Today, she is that person. "I get to give patients a hand to get past some of the hurdles of cancer treatment." says McBeth. "That's the most rewarding part."