Sidney L. Arje,     Vice President for Professional Education, American Cancer Society, Inc., New York, N.Y.

ABSTRACT

Professional education by the American Cancer Society stresses early diagnosis and prompt and adequate treatment. It provides information on cancer to motivate the medical and allied health professions to practice the latest techniques in detection and diagnosis. The program is aimed at the primary physician defined as the physician who sees the patient first. The methods used include publications, audiovisual materials and conferences. Clinical fellowships are supported to increase the number of physicians with expertise in the management of cancer. To insure the inclusion of cancer in the education of medical students, the American Cancer Society supports Professors of Clinical Oncology in Medical Schools. The American Cancer Society also assists other professional organizations in carrying out their educational programs. The effectiveness of professional education activities of the American Cancer Society results from the organization of the Society into its National Headquarters, 58 Divisions and 3, 000 Units. This allows for broad coverage at national, regional and local levels and provides professional education where the target audience lives and works.

TEXT

Because of the constantly growing body of medical knowledge necessary to provide optimum medical care, the medical and allied health professions have an increaseing need for continuing education in all fields of medicine. This is nowhere more apparent than in the field of cancer. The American Cancer Society is the only organization with a sustained interest and a proven capacity for professional education incancer on a broad scale throughout the United States.

In addition to providing factual information and the means for education to physicians, dentists, nurses and to members of the allied health professions, the program of the American Cancer Society must persuade and stimulate them to carry out new or special procedures in the detection, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of cancer and to recognize the importance of their individual roles in determining the extent to which cancer is controlled.

It is important to emphasize that much of the effort of the American Cancer Society in its professional education program is concerned with the cultivation of attitudes. Cultivating a hopeful attitude, a belief in the curability of cancer and in the importance of early detection and prompt and adequate treatment for this purpose is basic to the program.

The aim of the professional education program of the American Cancer Society, therefore, is to make sure that the members of the medical and allied health professions in every community are convinced of the importance of and are carrying out the best cancer detection and management techniques.

Since the burden of prevention and early detection of cancer rests primarily on the doctor who first sees the patient, the professional education program of the American Cancer Society is particularly directed to the primary care physician, as well as to dentists, nurses and other allied health professional personnel both directly and through their colleagues in the local community.

In establishing priorities for the educational programs of the American Cancer Society, emphasis has been properly placed on those forms of cancer which have a high incidence and lend themselves to control by prevention or early diagnosis. Both public and professional educational programs concentrate on six sites — lung cancer, breast cancer, colon and rectal cancer, uterine cancer and skin cancer. Lung cancer and skin cancer can be effectively attacked by preventive measures and the others through detection, early diagnosis and prompt and adequate treatment.

Programs are designed to supplement the roles of the medical, dental and nursing schools and the professional societies. Medical schools and medical societies are more therapy-oriented in their educational efforts and stress the management of cancer after it has been diagnosed. They give insufficient attention to prevention or screening and this gap provides the American Cancer Society with a unique educational role in concentrating on prevention and detection and early diagnosis.

The tools of the professional education program of the American Cancer Society encompass all the educational techniques in common use. As most surveys show that health professionals still rely on the printed word as their chief source of education, the American Cancer Society makes major use of this medium. It publishes “CA-A Cancer Journal for Clinicians” six times a year and distributes it free in the United States and at cost outside the U.S. The circulation of “CA” is over 400,000 and has the widest distribution of any medical journal in the world.

Another professional journal of the American Cancer Society is CANCER, a monthly technical journal for those members of the medical and scientific professions with special interests or responsibilities in the cancer field. This journal is sold through the publisher but the financial support of the American Cancer Society makes it available at a price which greatly increases its circulation-currently over 17,000.

In addition to these two journals the American Cancer Society publishes the Proceedings of its National Conferences which are held twice a year and provide a continuous update on cancer management, both by site and discipline. In the past five years, for example, there have been conferences on detection and diagnosis of cancer, treatment and rehabilitation of cancer, radiation oncology, virology and immunology in human cancer, gynecologic cancer, urologic cancer and a series on specific sites, such as breast, colon and rectum, leukemia & lymphomas, etc. The Proceedings of these conferences when published provide the latest information covered by experts in each field and fill the gap between the publishing of the textbooks on the same subjects.

Augmenting this library of professional education publications are two for which the American Cancer Society provides financial support to their development. In return, the Society is granted the privilege of publishing them. These are the series “Current Concepts in Cancer” and “Clinical Oncology for Medical Students and Physicians – A Multidisciplinary Approach” 50,000 copies of a fifth edition of “Clinical Oncology” have been published this year and a Spanish translation has been supported by the American Cancer Society and is now available.

To meet specific needs the American Cancer Society provides many shorter publications dealing with all aspects of cancer management in the form of reprints, original articles, monographs, etc. There are about 200 such publications available for physicians, dentists, nurses and allied health personnel.

While the printed word is a major means of communication in professional education, audiovisual materials are also provided by the American Cancer Society. A film library is maintained and updated constantly. About 40 films are available in 8mm and 16mm and in film and video cassettes. They address the detection and diagnosis of various sites of cancer and cover the nursing management of selected sites. Audiotapes of the Highlights of National American Cancer Society Conferences are available and audiotapes on specific subjects are produced and distributed.

Many other means of communication are used. The national conferences have been mentioned but these are duplicated on a smaller scale at regional and local levels. Travelling teams of cancer specialists provided by the American Cancer Society discuss aspects of cancer management requested by community physicians. Continuing medical education related to cancer is supported in community hospitals through hospital cancer coordinators, support for tumor boards and the provision of educational materials.

Supplementing these direct efforts in professional education, the American Cancer Society maintains a clinical fellowship program. Regular clinical fellowships are awarded annually to institutions to improve the management of the patient with cancer by supporting clinical oncology training for young physicians and dentists. Institutions must be able to provide 12 consecutive months of oncology training in a program leading to board certification in selected disciplines. Junior Faculty Clinical Fellowships are awarded annually to fellows to provide a three-year individualized program for outstanding young clinicians to follow academic careers upon completion of their specialty training. Assisting such promising individuals in academic assignments during the critical years when their career decisions are being made is intended to increase the number of teachers and clinical researchers in cancer. In awarding these fellowships the American Cancer Society places primary emphasis on the qualifications of the prospective fellow and his potentialities as a future leader in the cancer field as well as on the capacity and ability of the institution to provide him with training. The American Cancer Society also provides the Audrey Meyer Mars International Fellowship in Clinical...