World Cancer Day - February 4, 2009

World Cancer Day - February 4th.
In much of the world, February 4 is a major "awareness day" in the campaign to control cancer.

A relatively new initiative, the celebration of this event is rather low key so far. Spear-headed by the UICC’s Global Cancer Control Community through its Geneva offices, the effect is found in several countries. Canada has its own organized Campaign to Control Cancer [www.C2CC.org] with a Canadian leadership team under the championing direction of Pat Kelley. Their program involves several sectors, from government to students.

The international campaign is encouraging in that it involves children, through the optic of a problem which is particularly north american ... obesity in little people. On World Cancer Day, UICC launches the second full-year theme, in their Today's Children, Tomorrow's World, cancer prevention campaign. The rationale: being overweight or obesity can lead to cancer. The goal is to encourage kids to balance food and drink choices with physical activity. The campaign will call on families, health professionals, educators and policymakers to promote health and prevent cancer, by adopting and advocating a healthy energy-balanced lifestyle for children, thereby reducing their risk of developing cancer later in life.

Individuals and organizations have signed on to the World Cancer Declaration 2008 which I poste below. I signed on after our World Cancer Congress in Geneva last June, and so did The Strathmor Group. Here is an invitation to do the same. With more people involved, it would be hoped that one of the side effects will be a move to have the money donated to controlling cancer be made more transparent, in its end usage, especially research.

A call to action from the global cancer community: We the global cancer community call on governments, international governmental organizations, the international donor community, development agencies, professional organizations, the private sector and all civil society to take immediate steps to slow and ultimately reverse the growth in deaths from cancer, by committing to the targets set out below and providing resources and political backing for the priority actions needed to achieve them.

The 2020 Targets and Priorities of the 2008 Declaration can be found at http://www.uicc.org/templates/uicc/pdf/wcd2008/english.pdf
Sign up today.

Psychosocial Supportive Care - An Effective and Integrated Team Approach

Psychosocial Supportive Care - An Effective and Integrated Team Approach, is the title for my talk in a few weeks at the APOS (American Psychosocial Oncology Association) AGM and Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. We hear more and more about the necessity for intra-professional supportive care. Yet, how psychosocial supportive care can be fully integrated is little understood and infrequently practiced. Can there be an integration of all practices throughout the cancer continuum (transdiscipline cancer care)?

One of life’s singular joys has been to be a practitioner with an academic background as part of a team in a small but busy centre. Disciplines working in a coordinated manner were built into the treatment design. Without a blurring of professional boundaries, all the delivery has integrated services usually associated with supportive care – palliation, spiritual care, counselling, social work, patient groups, advocacy, nursing, telemedicine, cultural and religious diversity, survivorship. This is framed by concerns for a cost effective patient centred practice.

Can supportive care teamwork be effective in a time of specialties? The base of integrated work will be discussed. Above all else, can extensive supportive care assist oncologists in their medical practice, cause changes to the patients’ QoL and have a positive outcome in healing – all while having significant cost-offsets.

Insights will be shared as to how the radiation and medical oncologists meet together with the other professional team members as new patients are presented. What is expected from the social worker to spiritual care to the music therapist to dietician? A unique supportive care assessment tool ("The 4C's") has become part of each patient’s chart.

This model integrates psychosocial research and practice in quality cancer care. It is hoped that oncologists, clinicians, and supportive care professionals will be able to reflect on their own practices and determine how their medical culture can meet new standards of integrated teamwork whole patient care.