Fighting Back Against Cancer Recognizing National Minority Cancer Awareness Week, April 5th-11th

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1 Community Connections April 2015 Volume No 5, Issue 4 Fighting Back Against Cancer Recognizing National Minority Cancer Awareness Week, April 5th-11th Sammy Barnes is a fighter and not just for himself. In November 2011 he was diagnosed with a type of blood cancer called multiple myeloma, just six months after losing his ex-wife who was also the mother of his three children to cancer. He decided to fight back against the disease, enlisting the help of his kids to create Multiple Myeloma Fighters, an organization dedicated to raising awareness and helping support the search for a cure. I d like people to know that there s someone out there fighting for them, Barnes said. I want to take my group to each community in Buffalo and spread the word about multiple myeloma. As a member of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) Minority Patient Action Team, whose members consists of predominantly African-American and Hispanic/ Latino patients at RPCI, he offers advice, feedback, and insight based on his own experiences to help enhance programs and services for his fellow patients. Barnes is currently dealing with the side effects of chemotherapy, including dizzy spells that make it difficult to be active and travel. It s hard to attend events in the condition I m in, he said. I have my good days and my bad days, and on my good days I try to get around and do whatever I can. Research underway at RPCI aims to extend and improve the lives of patients like Barnes. Kelvin Lee, MD, Chair of the Department of Immunology and Co- Leader of the Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Program, focuses his work on the immunology and biology of multiple myeloma. The ultimate goal: to develop vaccines that can harness the patient s own immune system to destroy cancer cells. For information about risk factors for cancer and RPCI s early-detection programs for people at high risk, call ASK- RPCI ( ) or visit Inside this issue: THE MINORITY PATIENT ACTION TEAM THE OCHDR HAD A GREAT YEAR! Page# 2 3 OCHDR NEWS 4 MORE NEWS! 5

2 Community Connections Bringing Together Patients to Gain Advice: Roswell Park s Minority Patient Action Team PAT members include (from top to bottom) Thomasina Holmes, Sammy Barnes, and Melvin Marshall Page 2 Twenty-eight years ago, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to recognize the third week of April as National Minority Cancer Awareness Week. The goal: to draw attention to an unfortunate, but extremely important fact about cancer. While cancer affects men and women of every age, race, ethnic background, and economic class, the disease has a disproportionately severe impact on minorities and the economically disadvantaged. National Minority Cancer Awareness Week promotes increased awareness of prevention and treatment among groups who are at greater risk of developing cancer. It gives social workers, physicians, nurses, health care professionals, and researchers an opportunity to focus on populations with a higherthan-average risk of cancer and develop creative ways to tackle cancer-related problems specific to those communities. That s the idea behind the Minority Patient Action Team (PAT) initiative introduced by the Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) Office of Cancer Health Disparities Research (OCHDR). PAT brings together 12 RPCI minority patients who give advice about the use of cancer-related videos, provide insight into their experiences as minority cancer patients, and assist in enhancing and implementing the 21st Century leadership program for RPCI employees, which highlights important cultural issues. The National Cancer Institute (NCI) funds the program. It s hoped that when the PAT meetings conclude, the contributions of its members will be the basis for a program that could be adopted at RPCI. Only PAT members will be involved in developing the idea for the project, which must enhance care for minority (and eventually all) RPCI patients. This is a lively, engaging, and dedicated group of volunteers who are motivated to improve the patient experience at Roswell Park, said Nikia Clark, OCHDR Health Education Specialist and one of the facilitators of the Minority Patient Action Team. For more information about PAT, contact Nikia Clark at or Nikia.Clark@roswellpark.org. Visit

3 Volume 5, Issue 4 The OCHDR had a Great 2014! Recognizing National Minority Cancer Awareness Week, April 5th-11th The OCHDR sponsored over 300 community outreach events throughout the Western New York-region in Over 4,000 people were reached with cancer-specific awareness programming or direct outreach. I credit this success to our dedicated team and our many volunteers who work tirelessly in providing much needed services to underserved populations, said Dr. Deborah Erwin, Director of the OCHDR. For more information about health disparities, or to schedule events for your organization, contact Terry Alford at (716) , or go to cancer-health-disparities. The OCHDR Team Page 3

4 Community Connections OCHDR News! Pictured left to right: Jomary Colon, Isnory Colon (Esperanza y Vida), Harold Freeman, and Cassandre Dauphin (Buffalo/ Niagara Witness Project) OCHDR Staff in NYC for Patient Navigation Training In February, OCHDR staff members of Esperanza y Vida and the Buffalo/Niagara Witness Project traveled to New York City to participate in the two-day Harold Freeman Patient Navigation Institute Training program. Participating in this training program is important because the program provides strategies to eliminate barriers that prevent pertinent cancer screening, diagnosis, treatment, and supportive care for underserved women most in need of these services, said Jomary Colon, Project Coordinator of Esperanza y Vida, the OCHDR s breast cancer awareness and treatment support program that targets local Latina women. The concept of patient navigation was founded and pioneered by Harold P. Freeman in According to Freeman, a critical window of opportunity to apply patient navigation is between the point of an abnormal finding to the point of resolution of the finding by diagnosis and treatment. Currently the patient navigation model has been expanded to include the timely movement of an individual across the entire health care continuum from prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment, and supportive, to end-of-life care. Patient navigation has shown efficacy as a strategy to reduce cancer mortality and is currently being applied to reduce mortality in other chronic diseases. For more information about Patient Navigation services offered at Roswell Park, call ASK-RPCI ( ), or go to Bertha Brinson Page 4 OCHDR Welcomes New Member to its Team In November 2015, the OCHDR welcomed a new edition to its team, Bertha Brinson, as its new Community Health Worker working out of Roswell Park s satellite office at the Hamilton B. Mizer Building, which is located at the Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center. At th St. in Niagara Falls, NY. Currently, Bertha is a student at NCCC majoring in Human Services and expects to graduate in December. She is married to Bishop Joseph Brinson, Jr. and is the First Lady of the Covenant of Grace Fellowship International Church at 1509 Main Street in Niagara Falls. As a pastor s wife of ten years now, community outreach coupled with promoting health education has always been and still remains a real passion of mine, Bertha says.

5 Volume 5, Issue 4 More OCHDR News! Recognizing National Minority Cancer Awareness Week, April 5th-11th Cavalcade of Cars In February, members of the MANUP Prostate Cancer Awareness Advocacy group, along with organizers of the th Annual Cruisin for a Cure Buffalo Car Show, participated in the 22nd Annual Cavalcade of Cars at the Hamburg Fairgrounds in Hamburg, NY. The purpose of our volunteers participating in the Cavalcade event is to launch our promotional efforts to inform car enthusiasts that attend events such as these about our own car show and prostate cancer screening event in September, said Richard Satterwhite, MANUP President. While at the three-day event, our volunteers also disseminated important information about prostate cancer and the benefits of talking to one s doctor about early screening for the disease if one displays high risk factors. This year s Cruisin for a Cure Buffalo Car Show will be held at Roswell Park on Saturday, September 26, 2015, from 9 am until 4 pm, rain or shine (shelter will be available in case of inclimate weather). Prostate cancer education and screenings will begin at 11 am until 2 pm. To preregister for screenings, call ASK-RPCI ( ), or go to Find us on Facebook too; go to: Cruisin for a Cure Buffalo From left to right: Jim Dorsey and Richard Davis working the MANUP booth at the Cavalcade of Cars Roswell Park Introduces New Program to Help Smokers Quit Roswell Park is offering a FREE five-week tobacco cessation course to the community. Classes will be held on Mondays, 12 noon until 1:30 pm in the Research Studies Center Prevention Center located at the corner of Elm and Carlton Streets. A new series of classes will begin every five weeks. Attendees will receive effective quit strategies, a nicotine assessment, group support, stress management, relapse prevention, medication referrals, coupons for nicotine replacement therapy, and much, much more. For questions or to register, contact Stephanie Segal at (716) , or at Stephanie.Segal@roswellpark.org. Page 5

6 R O S W E L L P A R K C A N C E R I N S T I T U T E Roswell Park Cancer Institute The Carlton House, Room 308-A Elm & Carlton Streets Buffalo, New York Phone: Fax: Terry.Alford@roswellpark.org Want to catch up on past editions of the Community Connections newsletter? Just go to: