Omaha area high school teachers are encouraged to learn about cancer prevention and how to integrate it into the school curriculum during a free workshop at UNMC on Sept. 15.
Two international cancer experts will present the all-day Cancer Prevention Education Workshop, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at UNMC’s College of Public Health, Rooms 3001 and 3009.
The event is sponsored by a small grant — “Breast cancer educate to prevent” — from the Susan G. Komen organization.
Filipe Silva, Ph.D., and Ana Barros, Ph.D., from Porto, Portugal, will share their experiences with the success of integrating cancer prevention into the high school curriculum in Portugal.
For the past two years, they have worked with Denise Britigan, Ph.D., assistant professor, health promotion, UNMC College of Public Health, and Benson High School Magnet teachers to develop a pilot course for their health professions academy track.
The course began last year and teaches the importance of cancer screenings for skin, breast, cervical, lung and colon cancers, of which 80 percent are preventable; how diet and exercise prevents cancer; cancer statistics and the geographic location of cancer pockets; and what happens when a family member or friend gets cancer.
The workshop’s keynote speaker will be Abeena Brewster, M.D., a tenured professor of clinical cancer prevention at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston. She is a medical oncologist in MD Anderson’s Nellie B. Connally Breast Center and her clinical interest is the management of breast cancer. She has experience in the conduct and data management of hospital and population based cohort studies and is the principal investigator and director of a longitudinal cohort study of women at high risk of developing breast cancer.
An afternoon panel discussion about the future of cancer prevention education will feature UNMC’s Edibaldo Silva-Lopez, M.D., Ph.D., professor of surgical oncology, and Maurice Godfrey, Ph.D., professor in the Munroe-Meyer Institute, and speakers from the Omaha Public Schools and local community.
Attendees may participate in a walking tour of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center and view the center’s healing arts video at 4 p.m.
Registration is required by Sept. 13 and is limited to 60 people.