Prostate news report, April 2007
| ABC OF PROSTATE
CARE SEMINARS
A young GP tells how she benefitted
from attending the
By: Andrea Kon (Prostate UK) |
 |
Dr Laila Fazluddin travelled a long way in updating her treatment of men with prostate problems recently. Dr. Fazludding, 30, who works at the Norton Medical Centre in Stockton-on-Tees, travelled more than 50 miles to attend a Seminar organised by a national charity. She says she believes her journey was worthwhile “It has altered my entire perspective on the impact of these devastating diseases,” she says.
The ABC of Prostate Care attended by 65 delegates at the Newcastle Falcon’s Rugby Club, was organised by Prostate Research Campaign UK, the only British-based charity to run such Seminars countrywide. The prestigious free Seminar, the latest in a countrywide series and including lectures by some of the country’s leading urological experts, as well as offering a patient perspective, was open to all healthcare professionals concerned with treating prostate diseases. Prostate cancer, benign prostate disease and prostatitis, a painful inflammation of the prostate, can not only devastate patients lives, but those of their families, too.
Around 32,000 men a year are diagnosed with prostate cancer. Some 10,000 die of the disease, which is the most common cancer in men. Benign prostate problems also affect half of all men over the age of 50. And far from being a disease of ‘old’ men, prostatitis can affect men of any age. The charity funds research into all these prostate diseases and offers free patient information.
As Dr Fazluddin explains: “I went along after receiving some advertising leaflets for the Seminar in our surgery. As a female GP, I have not seen many prostate patients so far. I don’t have much in the way of background experience managing patients with prostate problems and I didn’t do a surgical post in prostate diseases. So when I saw the leaflet, I decided to sign up".
“I needed to know more about the risks and benefits of sending men for various tests, such as the PSA test, (prostate specific antigen test) which although a simple blood test to administer, requires a clear understanding when interpreting the results. I learned a great deal about the treatment options patients are offered when they are diagnosed with prostate disease and I felt privileged to hear about prostate cancer from the patients’ perspective and how things really are for patients and their families".
“It has certainly made me more aware of prostate diseases and I will be more pro-active in future, looking for prostate problems in men who present with symptoms. If men ask for PSA tests, I am in a better position to advise them than I was before this Seminar. And I feel much more confident now about telling men what they might expect when I send them for prostate related hospital appointments.”
Dr Fazluddin may have travelled a long way in her search to offer her patients top-quality prostate health care, but not as far as one of the delegates. Dr Greville Galindon II, a consultant urologist who lives and works in the Philippines broke a holiday in London to attend the Newcastle meeting.