After 60 years of combined service at IBM working in marketing and service, the Cormans decided that they would not spend their retirement on some beach in the Caribbean, but at Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut, where Stephen Corman was successfully treated for prostate cancer.
Starting in 2000, they used their organizational skills culled from years in business to create support groups for prostate cancer patients and work with the hospital’s oncology department to guide those patients on the path to recovery or comfort them in their final days. Today, they continue to log thousands of hours as volunteers doing everything from counseling patients to providing hand-knitted shawls for patients undergoing chemotherapy.
What interested the Cormans most was palliative care, a program that addresses all aspects of a critical illness including physical, spiritual and emotional. Palliative care is often misunderstood. While hospice care comes at the end of a patient’s life, palliative care can come at any time during an illness.
Betsy Corman had experienced first-hand the value of the cancer support group at the hospital during her husband’s illness. “I believe there is great comfort, security, and re-assurance for a family to have knowledgeable, caring people who can help families cope with what is going on medically, emotionally, financially, and practically, “ she said.
