Goals
The goals of the Melanoma Awareness Project are to educate students and their teachers in grades 6-12 about the sun’s effects on their skin, sun protection, and skin cancers, with an emphasis on early detection of melanoma. The project also aims to leave students with an interest in teaching their friends and loved ones about melanoma. In having medical students with a variety of specialty interests as volunteer teachers, we also hope to increase their awareness of melanoma and eventually enhance early detection by physicians across medical specialties.
Rationale
Melanoma, being the most dangerous form of skin cancer, kills one person every hour in the U.S. despite being easily detectable and 95-100% curable if treated early. It is estimated that 19/20 melanoma deaths could have been prevented simply with increased awareness and earlier detection. Melanoma affects a wide range of age groups, not uncommonly occurring in teens. It is the most prevalent cancer type in women of the 20-29 age group and the number one cancer killer in women aged 25-29. And its incidence is currently increasing by 2.5% annually, faster than any other preventable cancer.
Focus
The Melanoma Awareness Project is directed toward students and their teachers in grades 6 through 12.
Accomplishments
The melanoma awareness project was initiated in 2003 by the University of California, Irvine (UCI) DIG in memory of Joel Myres, a UCI medical student who died of melanoma in 2001. To date, the program has educated over 4,000 students at 6 middle and high schools in Orange County, and over 800 students in Texas. Medical schools that are already participating or preparing to participate in the program include Duke; Loma Linda University; Medical College of Wisconsin; New Mexico University; University of California, Irvine; University of Texas, Southwestern; and Vanderbilt University among others.
Details
DIGs send letters to local middle and high schools explaining the need for skin cancer education in this age group and volunteering to send medical students to teach the middle and high school students. Once principals and teachers agree to have medical students come teach about skin cancer in their classrooms, medical students are recruited and trained to go out and teach the interactive 50-minute curriculum. After the teaching is completed, students are invited to participate in the Melanoma Awareness Project Poster contest, where artists of winning posters are awarded prizes and the children’s posters, with their permission, are replicated and posted throughout the community. This gives the students a sense of ownership in their role of increasing melanoma awareness.
Logistics
The education is very inexpensive and it can probably be done without applying for grant money. The only costs are reproducing overheads or disks so that there is a copy of the curriculum in each classroom.
The program is named the Melanoma Awareness Project, but a person’s name may be inserted to impact to the education. For example, the UCI program is named “The Joel Myres Melanoma Awareness Project” in honor of a UCI medical student who passed away from melanoma in 2001. If a DIG can honor someone in its community in this way, it will make the program much more real to everyone involved. The UCI DIG has a slide in its presentation with Joel’s story and picture. This may be used in addition to or as a substitute for with somebody else’s memory the DIG may want to honor.
To get the curriculum, please e-mail Jeanette Waller at melanoma@uci.edu. It’s fairly universal, and DIGs are welcome to use all of it directly. The first few slides contain statistics specific to California/ Orange County. To find applicable statistics for your area, go to www.nci.nih.gov/statistics/finding. This site has very general info with links to all kinds of sites with medical statistics. One of the best links is that to state cancer profiles under the interactive sites (statecancerprofiles.cancer.gov). This will allow DIGs to choose any kind of cancer; if melanoma is chosen, many applicable statistics will be found.
A sample recruitment letter for the educational component (without research) is provided. Send this out to local principals, teachers, etc. The California statistics at the top of the letter should be replaced with those pertinent to the DIG’s area. Direct connections with local teachers or schools are the easiest way to get the ball rolling. Follow-up should be done aggressively; schools have responded very enthusiastically and recruitment has not been a problem.
The UCI DIG wanted to “go big,” so they tried to schedule their teaching with entire departments where possible, all on one day. They taught all of the 7th and 8th grade math classes at one school (1400 students) with only 10 medical student teachers (1 per classroom for the day). Plenty of time should be given and the activity should be scheduled about 2 months in advance so that volunteers can be recruited, etc.
Once there is a sense of how many med-student teachers will be needed, advertising the program should begin. This can start with mass e-mails to peers, flyers, announcements, etc. As the date approach, a training session for all interested volunteers should be held where the curriculum is taught as it would at the schools. This session may be recorded so that people who become involved later can be trained without a special meeting. During the training meeting, signups for the various dates and schools should be available. Wherever possible, especially if students will be teaching for several hours, medical students should be paired up (2 per classroom) so that they can rotate.
DIGs have had great success in recruiting schools, but are limited in terms of number of medical student volunteers. The program may be opened up to undergraduate students at the discretion of the DIG leader. The leadership team should be well structured, however, so that things don’t get out of hand.
The volunteer teachers (the medical students) should have the curriculum and notes ahead of time so that they can practice. Also, multiple reminders and directions to the schools should be sent out. Enough copies of the curriculum should be reproduced (color copies of overhead sheets or disks/power-point if the classrooms have this ability). Someone should be there to take photographs and keep careful record of how many students are taught.
Thank you letters should be sent to the principal and teachers so that the DIG may be able to return the next year.
Throughout this process, underclassmen should be trained to lead the project in future years.
If funding is available, an annual thank-you lunch may be set up to thank all student volunteers and faculty help involved with the project. The UCI DIG is using this time also to honor Joel Myres and officially name their program after him; his family attends the thank you lunch as well.
Report
After the event, a report should be sent to the Community Service Director. This report should include the number of students taught, the name of the school, the names of the medical student participants, and photographs.