India, June 28 -- The Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) has introduced a virtual master's course to train healthcare workers as oncology patient navigators, a new role aimed at helping cancer patients navigate diagnosis, treatment and follow-up while improving coordination with doctors.

The first batch of 73 participants, which included 49 medical officers from the National Health Mission (NHM) Maharashtra and 24 from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), graduated on June 6.

"For the doctors, a navigator would be a representative of the patient and for the patient, he would be a representative of the doctors," said Dr R.A. Badwe, honorary professor emeritus, Tata Memorial Hospital.

The initiative seeks to create trained professionals...