Breast Cancer Foundation
The continuing fight against breast cancer has inspired one group of local doctors and residents to try and get the word out about breast exams and preventative care. Said James Hamilton, president of the Breast Cancer Foundation, letting people know about the simple things to detecting cancer are more important than ever this Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Breast Cancer Foundation
The continuing fight against breast cancer has inspired one group of local doctors and residents to try and get the word out about breast exams and preventative care.
Said James Hamilton, president of the Breast Cancer Foundation, letting people know about the simple things to detecting cancer are more important than ever this Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Dayton Local: How did the Breast Cancer Foundation begin?
James Hamilton: "We began about 22 years ago. We started right here in Dayton, Dr. [K. Chris Chung] was our founding member and one of the medical directors for the foundation. He started the foundation and it’s grown since then. We’re a 100 percent volunteer organization. Everything we do in terms of fundraisers and money the organization raises stays in the local community.”
DL: What kind of services do you provide?
JH: "Our goal is to provide education and educational material to both mammography technologists and the public about breast cancer awareness. We do education conferences for the technologists to meet their CME credits, and then we do speaking engagements to different community groups in the area, and fundraisers with material on self-breast exams and breast incidents and awareness for what causes breast cancer etc.”
"We also co-sponsor with the breast cancer task force the annual video contest that high schools in the area perform PSAs and we judge those, load them up on YouTube and the get large numbers of hits. Last year it was like 15,000 hits in 16 countries. We award scholarship prizes. Last year we gave out over $14,000 in scholarships to high school students for their PSAs they produced.”
DL: What are some important things people should know about protecting themselves from breast cancer?
JH: "Certainly go to our website for information. The number one thing that women should do is the self exam and a mammography every year after the age of 40. In my opinion those two are the highest priority. The others would be to see your physician to make sure you do the exam correctly. We have some information on how to perform a self-breast exam. Those three things: See your physician to ensure you’re doing the exam properly, do regular exams and after the age of 40 do a mammogram, those are the three most important things to remember.”
DL: How can people help?
JH: "We actually are working on a membership pool that we haven’t implemented yet. We get high school kids and some breast cancer survivors that help us at events, who go out and speak to people and that sort of thing, but we’re also to looking to form a partnership for people who just want to come and stuff bags and things and mailers, labor intensive items, in the future.”
"As far as donations, if they go to our website, they can see the P.O. box. We get checks at that P.O. box frequently, with random donations as well as many businesses with ways for employees to have payroll deductions, and they can designate certain not-for-profit organizations which we been designated several times.”
Links & Tags
Breast Cancer Foundation.
