Trainers’ Breast Health Workshop, Petaling Jaya – 15 September 2007
By Dr Evelyn Ho 

There were 22 ladies at a trainers’ breast health workshop that lasted 4 hours of a Saturday afternoon. They were given tips and tricks as trainers of breast health, motivation, examples and ideas to rejuvenate, motivate, update and impart the message of breast health awareness.

Participants were encouraged to speak, testify and test themselves in “created” situations. They also shared some of their experience. Participants came from the Kluang and Segamat breast cancer support groups, Breast Cancer Welfare Association as well as one from the Pfizer Care-A Van programme.

During the programme, updated Take Charge of Your Breast Health Leaflets (you can also download them here) from the College of Radiology was distributed to the various support groups for their use in the coming International Breast Cancer Awareness months and special posters as well as teaching silicon breast models were donated to the 3 support groups. These collaterals were courtesy of the College of Radiology and Johnson & Johnson’s breast health programme.

Dr Evelyn Ho conducted the workshop with the assistance of Rosa Ho, Barbara Khoo and Francis Lee. The venue was sponsored by Johnson & Johnson Medical in Wisma Zuellig, Petaling Jaya. Johnson & Johnson Medical has been a supporter and sponsor of the College of Radiology breast health programmes since 2001.

Feedback after the workshop was mostly positive with some finding it informative, some very motivating and some asking for a full day workshop! The aim of the workshop was to open the minds about training, revealing some of the psychological factors to barriers of being breast aware as well as updating them on the proper techniques of self examination. The need to adapt and be flexible in the way they imparted the information was also emphasised.
 

NCR 2003 Report: Breast Cancer is still the top cancer amongst women

Latest statistics from
the National Cancer Registry (NCR) show
that lung cancer is the most common cancer experienced by men in the country, whilst
breast cancer is the top cancer in women. Lung cancer accounts for 13.8 per cent of cancer cases among men. For women, breast cancer accounts
for 31 per cent of cases.