Hello OCF forum participants,

Many of you may already know about the upcoming walks for oral cancer awareness are listed on our main site, if you do your already ahead of the game. If you don't know what I'm talking about you are in luck, I'm here to share all the info.

Now that places are starting to thaw out RDH groups, Dental schools and survivors are teaming up together and putting Oral Cancer Awareness walks on all over the country. We already have about 5 set up for the next few months and we get new ones in every week.

Walks can always use more volunteers, walkers, donations, support and survivors to help make it great. We have found out that it really helps if there is at least one survivor at the walk to talk to volunteers and tell how horrible this cancer is. So if you find a walk thats close to you and your family, friends, kids baseball team or book club want to join in and spread the word about oral cancer this is the place to go. Also if you get ideas and want to volunteer and put one on yourself i have the lady that can help you make that happen. Susan Lauria: [email protected]

http://www.oralcancerfoundation.org/events/current_events.htm

http://www.ocfstore.org/Oral_Cancer_Walks_s/99.htm


If you have any other question let me know!!!!

Brittany McGinley

Any future plans for a walk in Chicago? I know many who would walk in memory of my brother.

Noemi

Brittany,

I am so happy to see the new walks that are coming up. I knew about Philadelphia and Eva's walk in Behtlehem, but the others are a surprise to me.

I have attended all of the New York City walks since it's inception and I wanted to let new members know about that one, too. For some reason Brian hasn't been able to get all the details for it yet in order to post it, but it will be on April 18th, as far as I know. That is the same day as the Philly walk.

Jerry

And not on the page, is the annual NYU/NYC walk in April. We are just waiting for logos and exact times to put that one up. I have to say that the RDH community is really picking up the ball on this. As part of the early detection team in the dental offices, they are qualified to do visual and tactile screenings, and in many cases actually spend more time looking at soft tissues than the doctors themselves. Getting them involved with OCF is something that somehow the ADA just does not get in the same vein... spending time looking for a life threatening disease, and doing this with every patient in an opportunistic manner as part of their practice, brings prestige to their profession. A visit for an annual cleaning is not just about hygiene, it is a non negotiable reason to be at the dental office.

I notice that some walks coincide with the Relay For Life events. Is there a relationship there? I plan to participate in the local relay on april 25th.

Hi Noemi,

We do not have any walks scheduled for Chicago, but I did walk in memory of my brother who passed away from tongue cancer in 2006 and most of it was family and friends. If you would ever want to consider doing a walk in his memory in your area, I would be glad to talk to you about it. It is a very rewarding experience and a great way to remember your brother. I plan on having another this September in NJ. My walk is up on the past ocf events section of the website. You can pm me or email me at [email protected].

It is a great way to honor your brothers life and possibly save some lives as well by bring oral cancer awarness to your area.

Take care

Susan

Susan

David,

In regard to any realtionship between the ACS and their Relay for Life and the OCF, having the same date is just a coincidence.

I have found that the ACS is not very supportive of OC. In fact one year when I was doing Oral Cancer Screenings at a Relay for Life event, I noticed that as you walked around the track, there were signs with the names of most types of cancers on big signs. Was there one for Oral Cancer? No there wasn't. I asked the local ACS representative why the sixth most common cancer wasn't on a sign and she didn't have an answer for me. Needless to say, I was extremely disappointed, but not surprised.

As far as hygienists doing OC screenings, in our office all 3 of my hygienists are fully trained in doing a comprehensive visual and tactile screenings. Every patient in our practice has this done at their 6 month hygiene visits. New patients have it done at their initial exams by one of the doctors.

Jerry

ACS has literally hundreds of events every year. That one would coincide with a date of an OCF event is not anything more than coincidence. The Doc is right, ACS doesn't do anything for OC. That vacuum created a need for OCF. It took three years of talking with them for me to just get them to put up some lousy web pages about our disease on their site, and they don't even update them. Of the millions of dollars they take in from donors each year, they spend nothing on oral cancers. It's all in their mandatory public disclosures.... we just don't fit into their business model of spending their time on the diseases that have the most incidence and the most survivors, that generates the most volunteers and the most donors. It's a good plan for the business that they are. Is it the best model for us? I may sound bitter, but what you are reading is disappointment. This is not going to change.