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Over 80% of children diagnosed with cancer will be cured, but that doesn’t mean their battle will be over. More than 70% of those survivors will deal with long-term health issues, such as heart and lung complications, hormonal disorders and infertility, that arise due to their treatment. Managing those conditions often falls to pediatricians , but those doctors may lack the time or specialized training to effectively treat them.

Survive & Thrive is a program at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital that aims to provide a range of support and care to childhood cancer survivors. The survivorship program begins two years after a patient has completed cancer treatment and takes a multidisciplinary approach, involving a team of mental and physical health care providers, social workers and even school liaisons . The liaisons offer educational support if, for example, chemotherapy has left a child with neurocognitive side effects.

“With survivorship, we try to make the cancer experience like a speedbump on the road of life,” said medical director Matthew Ramirez, M.D. “If there’s a late effect, like depression, we want to help the survivor overcome that through psychology or psychiatric therapy or medications. Once they get over that hump, they can put it behind them … Our survivors are healthy, and we just try to keep them that way.”

The program isn’t limited to kids who have beaten cancer; any child with a health issue that could cause long-term complications is provided with care going forward, and there is no age limit (though once the patient becomes an adult, they are referred to adult physicians should their condition require it ).