Madhavi Parikh, The Cancer Coach

My clinical coaching services offer personalized guidance and support to individuals currently battling cancer, cancer survivors, and caregivers supporting loved ones with cancer.

As a Physician Associate/Assistant and cancer coach, I have spent over 20 years caring for and helping cancer patients recover from an illness that dominates and defines their lives. If you want cancer to remain just an illness, if you want both therapy for the disease and healing for the accompanying apprehensions, I can help! I want to help you release your fears, recover your confidence, and regain your sense of purpose.

Cancer is neither a punishment nor a battle; it is not a reflection of our character nor a culmination of our karma; it is not the end of all things. And yet, when we are faced with cancer in our lives or the lives of our beloved family and friends, we meet it with fear and guilt, with anger and shame, with tears and terror. We allow cancer to capture our identity and define our destiny.

My practice of medicine and approach to cancer coaching is profoundly connected to my life, marked by many losses, subsequent struggles, and painful realizations. By the time I was 18, I had lost my grandparents, father, and nanny to different maladies. My mother, my siblings, and I lived through a decade of financial and emotional insecurity. For countless years, decades even, I didn’t realize the scope of my suffering and how trauma was buried deep in my mind and body as a result of these losses. I chose medicine because I wanted to heal and redeem a sense of purpose.

I became a PA in my mid-thirties, and my first job out of college was at an oncology clinic serving patients from rural and suburban settings. I discovered that cancer swallowed every bit of mental and emotional space of some of my patients and through their experience, began to see the importance of resiliency and compassionate care of the self. This paved the path for self-inquiry, leading me to learn insight meditation. I noticed the role that shame and guilt had played in my life and realized that I was diminishing myself, and similarly some of my patients were putting aside their love of life under the burden of this illness.

I chose Contemplative and Integrative medicine because I want to care for my patients with kindness and compassion for the whole being affected by Cancer: mind, body, spirit, family, community, and environment. The undertow of cancer affects much more than the proper functioning of the body and its organs. Cancer drags the whole of life: an illness becomes something larger, intractable, and mysterious.

But it is not. Let us not allow it.

Take this opportunity to reduce cancer back to its size. My goal as your clinical coach and health advocate is to tailor a plan that speaks directly to your needs and empowers you and your loved ones in the healing process. Utilizing my unique I-SPIE (Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional) Health model we can re-center your purpose and efforts on elevating your mind, relationships, and your community. With contemplative and collaborative care that integrates conventional medicine with CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) modalities, together we can foster a powerful synergy between the physical and psychological; enhancing your awareness and incorporating aspects of your life that need care and compassion.

I chose medicine because I wanted to heal
and redeem a sense of purpose. 

What Is I-SPIE Health?
Through my I-SPIE Health model, I will walk you through my approach to care. It is the perfect way to embark on our journey together – with clarity and setting the foundation for transformative progress.