Letter from Victoria Mann Simms
As a mother, wife, grandmother – as well as a psychotherapist – I have attended to the emotional needs of others for many years. However, it wasn’t until my father, Ted Mann, became ill many years ago that I grew aware of my own vulnerability and increasing sense of powerlessness. As a result, I had to search deep within myself to find those pathways along which I could help my father live each day with quality of life, dignity and, most of all, meaning.
This intensely personal journey lead me to recognize a genuine need in medicine for a model that concentrates on the interconnection between the emotional, physical and spiritual aspects of patients, their families and caregivers. It was with this knowledge of treating the needs of the whole person, not just the illness, that my family established the Simms Mann UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology.
When sickness strikes someone close to us, the emotional and financial toll on the patient, as well as family members, can be far-reaching and lasting. Through a wellness model that incorporates psychosocial and spiritual needs with traditional medicine, the Simms Mann Center offers care that encompasses the bigger picture of how disease affects people’s lives. At the Center we provide a multi-disciplinary team of professionals all working together to enhance the healing process. The Center’s staff is highly trained in the areas of integrative medicine, nutrition, nutritional supplements, stress reduction, psychiatric care and psychosocial services.
A primary goal of the Center is to provide patients and families with a sense of empowerment and control over their own healing by offering them the education, tools and support programs that will help enhance both their health and emotional well being. The Simms Mann Center empowers patients through complementary programs such as meditation, Qi Gong, art therapy and journal writing—therapies that have benefited my own and countless other families. Healing the whole self occurs in unlimited and substantially individual ways.
It is with this intent and absolute dedication to a holistic approach to health and healing that the Simms Mann UCLA Center for Integrative Oncology serves its patients and their families.