Dear Colleague,
As we begin to welcome spring, we are also welcoming the opportunity to conduct more health fairs and other community outreach events to raise cancer awareness. This issue contains an article that is specifically focused on breast cancer awareness and educating women (and men) about the facts regarding breast health and breast cancer. What makes this article different is that it provides a bird’s-eye view of how to engage consumers in a fun way to learn, retain, and use information to help ensure their own breasts remain healthy. This is merely one way to creatively engage people in your local communities.
So I want this example to serve as a challenge to all to get your creative juices flowing and invent interactive ways for you, other healthcare staff, and cancer survivor volunteers to develop and implement similar programs; join together to design methods to promote cancer awareness and healthy lifestyle behaviors to reduce the risk of getting cancer; and explore ways to instill the facts and undo the myths associated with various forms of cancer. Perhaps once your program is developed and implemented, you, too, can write an article for our editorial board to consider for a future issue of the journal. We are here to foster knowledge among all of you, and one of the best ways to do that is by sharing programs that have proven to be successful in carrying out our mission!
If in your navigation role you are not personally involved in community outreach programs, please consider participating in a few. It helps consumers to know that if they do end up diagnosed with a particular type of cancer, there is someone like you who will be ready, willing, and able to guide them through.
With best regards,
Lillie D. Shockney, RN, BS, MAS
Editor-in-Chief