School of Nursing Promotes Breast Cancer Awareness
Students and faculty from the Alice Ramez Chagoury School of Nursing have participated in several events during this fall’s national Breast Cancer Awareness campaign. In October junior nursing students volunteered over 85 hours to inform women and men about breast cancer facts and the importance of breast cancer screening. Students staffed Breast Cancer Awareness stations at the ABC stores in shopping malls in Achrafieh and Dbayeh. Ala’a Badran, one of the nursing students said, “Women were interested and want to know more about how to detect breast cancer early. It was interesting to spread the awareness and share our knowledge with the public.” Sara Yassin, another nursing student, reported that “most women are aware of the importance of annual mammograms but didn’t know that a woman should be performing monthly breast self-examinations also.” Nursing student Ahmad Theibich added, “It was nice to be able to provide them with more information.”
On November 25 the LAU Nursing Club sponsored a booth on LAU’s Byblos campus, providing information to an estimated 400 students, faculty and staff about the growing incidence of breast cancer and measures that can be taken for early detection. Those who came to the booth were taught about when and how to perform a breast self-examination as well as the importance of mammograms and clinical breast exams by health providers. Nohra Mansour, a sophomore nursing student explained that the awareness booth “gave me an opportunity to learn more and share important information about breast cancer with other LAU students.” Junior nursing student Marie-Elise Haddad explained that the booth helped LAU students realize the important of breast self-examination.
Dr. Myrna Doumit, Associate Professor and Assistant Dean, also participated in a number of events related to Breast Cancer Awareness in recent weeks. Dr. Doumit, whose research focuses on breast cancer in Lebanon, serves on the National Committee for Breast Cancer Awareness, which helped organize this fall’s national awareness campaign. Dr. Doumit gave several “train the trainer” workshops for nurses working in governmental hospitals and for employees of the ABC company. “This type of training,” she says, “helps spread the word about breast cancer screening.”
