Consulate-General in New York to host conference on Prostate Cancer

The world famous New York-based Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre is joining with the Jamaican Consulate-General in New York, to host a prostate cancer conference on Saturday, March 27, at its Rockefeller Research facility in Manhattan.
The Jamaican Diaspora, North East USA, is also partnering in the conference, entitled ‘Prostate Cancer: Current Status and Future Directions/Unique Impact on Caribbean and African-American Men’.
An initiative of Jamaica’s Consul-General in New York, Mrs. Geneive Brown Metzger, who founded the Consulate’s Medical and Health Care Council in 2008, the conference will present the latest findings on prostate cancer and the impact on Caribbean and African-American men.
The free educational event seeks to increase awareness among healthcare professionals and the community regarding prostate cancer, and features a number of prominent experts who will address a variety of issues relating to prostate cancer.
“Prostate cancer is most common in Jamaican males, and its incidence has been increasing steadily since the inception of PSA screening in Jamaica in 1983,” according to Dr. Barrie Hanchard, a consultant with the Department of Pathology at the University of the West Indies at Mona.
In the United States, African-American men are at greater risk of prostate cancer than whites and also are more likely to have an aggressive form of the disease.
“This conference is a unique opportunity for our community and for Jamaica. We hope that it will lead to a long-term collaboration between Memorial Sloan-Kettering and the medical community in Jamaica,” said the Consul General. “Collaboration across borders is a platform for information exchange and skills transfer,” she added.
Primary care physicians, community oncologists, urologists, urologic nurses, internists and other healthcare professionals, whose patients may include Jamaican men, are invited. Those eligible will receive continuing medical education credit. In addition, members of the Jamaican and African-American community are welcome and may be particularly interested in the afternoon topics regarding barriers to early diagnosis and treatment; genetic information; and a discussion about prostate cancer in Jamaica and the Jamaican healthcare system.
Among the conference’s featured participants are legendary singer/activist,
Mr. Harry Belafonte as keynote speaker, and renowned experts from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre, the Jamaican Government, the University of the West Indies, Monroe College, the Jamaican Cancer Registry, the Ralph Lauren Centre for Cancer Care and Prevention, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Jamaica’s Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Sheila Campbell-Forrester, will speak about the island’s health care systems, and Dr. Hanchard will focus on the scope of prostate cancer in Jamaica.