SPECIAL FORUM TO HONOR DOCTORS

The Cape Girardeau County Area Medical Society Alliance and Cape Girardeau's two hospitals will honor physicians with a special forum for women Thursday.

The forum, "Breast Cancer and You," will be held at the Centenary United Methodist Church Family Life Center.

Carol Sparkman, a member of the Alliance, said the forum was conceived as a "community service in honor of Doctors' Day as well as to promote a greater awareness of the importance of early detection in breast cancer and the many treatment options that are available today."

An April date was chosen for the forum, Sparkman said, because April is Cancer Control Month. She emphasized that the forum is designed for women who have not had breast cancer as well as for those who have confronted the disease.

This year, an estimated 182,000 U.S. women will develop breast cancer, and about one of every nine women will develop breast cancer during her lifetime. Breast cancer rates have increased slightly since 1980, but some of that increase is attributed to screening programs detecting tumors before they become clinically apparent.

"Breast Cancer and You" will include exhibits and literature from Southeast and St. Francis, the American Cancer Society and various companies specializing in the supply of special needs items. The evening also will include talks pertaining to the detection, treatment and prevention of breast cancer; a panel discussion; remarks from Lauchette Low, a breast cancer survivor; a question and answer period and informal time for one-on-one questions and hands-on demonstrations of breast lump detection using special breast forms provided by the American Cancer Society.

Exhibits will open at 6:30 p.m. The formal program begins at 7:15 and continues until 9 p.m. Speakers and topics will include Barbara Crowell, patient care manager of Womencare Program at St. Francis Medical Center; Nancy Mattingly, Cancer program coordinator at Southeast Missouri Hospital; Martha Robinson, cancer program coordinator with the Missouri Department of Health's Breast and Cervical Cancer Project.

Crowell's topic will deal with early detection and prevention of breast cancer. Mattingly will discuss the Breast Cancer Prevention Trial now under way in Cape Girardeau and throughout the nation; and Robinson will detail the project she works with.

In addition, a panel of physicians who treat breast cancer patients will discuss various treatment options. A question and answer session will follow the panel discussion.

Free babysitting is available at the forum. Individuals who wish to attend but do not have a ride may call the Cape Girardeau County Area Medical Society office at 334-5691 to arrange free transportation.

Doctors' Day has been a traditional annual observance since 1933. The event honors America's physicians on the anniversary of the occasion when Dr. Crawford W. Long became the first physician to use ether as an anesthetic agent in a surgical technique, March 30, 1842.