Cancer Research for the Layperson

As you may know I have been preparing information for my "Reading Between the Lines: What Cancer Research Means for You" talk for the past few weeks. My goal was to make cancer research results more understandable to the lay person.

I was thrilled when I entered the comfy, living room like setting of the CSC-CNJ to see seven women ready to hear me speak. Because of the informal setting it was easy to have a real conversation with these women. I shared information I had learned about clinical trials and they asked questions about protocols. I relayed questions that medical journalists should ask when writing articles and we turned it in to questions survivors should ask themselves when they hear cancer research news in the media. We talked about the words used in articles about cancer and they added to my list. We discussed experimental versus observational studies. I spoke about the format of peer-reviewed journals. I happened to pick a 2008 phase III study for small cell lung cancer as the example and it included a drug one of the women had been on, so that lead to an interesting one-on-one discussion with her at the end of my talk. I was happy to spend the hour with these survivors.

Thank you to The Cancer Support Community Central NJ (CSC-CNJ) for giving me the opportunity to share what I learned about cancer research as a Research Advocacy Network Focus on Research Scholar.

Dee

Every Day is a Blessing!