No need to wince, dear masculine readers (we’ll come back to this later), but yesterday at Saint Raphael’s approximately 197 digital rectal exams were performed, part of the second annual prostate cancer screening offered by the hospital’s Project Brotherhood.
James May, age 62, one of the participants, may not have known that September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. Or that Sept. 18 was national Take Your Loved One to the Doctor Day, as promoted widely on WYBC. Yet the considerable outreach effort to the African-American male population — many of whom for reasons of income, lack of insurance, fears, and cultural patterns that don’t include regular medical visits— produced impressive results: nearly 200 men filling the pleasant, sun-filled lobby of the hospital at George and Sherman streets for registration and prepping for exams.
“They put flyers over at 904 Howard Ave.,” Mays said as he awaited his turn, “in the community room. Hey, I was here last year and got a screening, and I’m for anything free that’s good for you.”
So Mays was back again. He had had a colonoscopy a year ago — he goes to the Hill Health Center — and two benign polyps were removed. “I’m now in the clear,” he said. He was also now in the pattern of getting regular check-ups, an educational goal as important to Project Brotherhood as the specific prostate cancer screenings.
Project Brotherhood was begun in April, 2006 by this man on the far right in this photo, Dr. Joseph Cardinale, medical director of the Father Michael J. McGivney Center for Cancer Care at Saint Raphael’s.
“When I came here,” he said, “I noticed this wonderful program for women that we have here, women coping with cancer, called Looking Forward. But there was little within it or at the hospital with a specific focus on men and specifically the three main cancers affecting older men: prostate, colorectal, and lung.”
So with interest and a grant from Bayer Health Care, Cardinale was able to hire health care outreach workers, print up brochures, make partnerships with community leaders, create the screenings, and spread the word. Since 2006 about 300 men have been screened for prostate cancer, which is eminently treatable and even curable with early detection. Sept. 18 would bring the total close to 500.
What are the myths out there that Project Brotherhood wants to dispel?
That’s where the wincing comes in.
“The first myth is that the brief rectal procedure is painful. There’s pain and then there’s a little discomfort,” Cardinale was at pains to distinguish. “This is a little uncomfortable for a brief instant, and then it’s over. And it can save your life.
“Second myth is that if someone is found to have prostate cancer and is treated with any of a number of means available — surgery, direct radiation, the implantation of radiation seeds — that these treatments leave the patient impotent. Not so. There are of course risks, but the earlier a cancer is caught, the less the risks all around. That’s why the outreach is so critical.”
The man to Cardinale’s right is Peter Wilson. He was there, like Mays, because the outreach was just right. “I’ve been told for years that I’ve had an enlarged prostate,” Wilson said, as he waited in a well-managed line for the vial for his blood test. “Then about a dozen years ago I had a couple of polyps removed from my bladder, so when I read about the screening in the Register, I figured it was time.”
But what actually got him to come in to today’s screening was the human factor: this young man, Augustine Okeke, Project Brotherhood’s program outreach specialist. Wilson said he met him in one of New Haven’s food banks, where Okeke was distributing a flyer on how to make a screening appointment. “So here I am.”
Okeke was born in Nigeria, where he did health outreach work among people suffering from diarrhea and malaria. He came to the U.S. A newly minted master’s degree holder in public health from Southern, he now works for Project Brotherhood, hanging out with Project Brotherhood materials at, among other places, food banks, or at the venerable Visel’s Pharmacy on Dixwell, or at CTWorks up on Ella Grasso Boulevard, which provides jobs and counseling to ex-offenders. In short, among New Haven’s poorer, older, and largely African-American male population.
What had Okeke learned in Nigeria that might be applicable in Elm City?
“In Africa, the diseases — malaria and diarrhea— are acute,” he said, “and can be treated quickly with the right medicines. Here, the diseases, like cancers and heart disease are more chronic. But what both situations have in common,” Okeke said, as he stood beside the “tree of life” in the cancer center lobby, “is the way to break into the community. In both places you need to find respected and influential people. They are the gateway. Once people know that you are being backed by known personalities, you can be effective.”
In New Haven Project Brotherhood recruited Reginald Mayo, the superintendent of schools, and a prominent local clergyman, Bishop William Philpot, to spread the word among their respective constituencies.
What about reaching the general population who may not be paying attention to the schools or going to church?
Enter this man on the right, WYBC radio personality, Juan Castillo. Himself a survivor of a bout with colon cancer 15 years ago, Castillo is completely committed, as is his radio station, he says, to get the word out.
“I made a commitment,” he said, “at that time to get the word out about screenings and health care to the community that needs it most, which is primarily the uninsured, and in New Haven that’s the African-American community.
“Look,” he said, as he spoke to Roy Perry, who had heard about the screening on the radio and was especially concerned because his dad had had the disease. “It’s not just the issue that people are poor and uninsured. I mean there are places like Hill Health Center where you can go without insurance. The idea is to change patterns, traditions. As African-Americans become middle class, they change, they go to the doctor. But if you’re poor, you don’t pay attention. You figure, I don’t have the money to take care of this thing if it happens, so better I not find out. Period. That can be a deadly decision, and that’s what we want to change.”
Castillo said that he and his station are committed to public service announcements on health issues, not just prostate cancer. The station features Tom Joyner, a radio personality in 80 markets, said Castillo, who is also a major promoter of changing African-American males’ doctor-going habits. “I’ve been at the station for 18 years,” Castillo said, “and for me it’s a wonderful job. Why? Because to affect someone’s health, to save their life, potentially, through the outreach, that really is my greatest accomplishment.”
True to his word, Castillo was urging Roy Perry and others, after they’d come out of their screening, to sign up for a special prize. The station had promised $10,000 along with a cabin on a luxury cruise to lucky winners chosen from the pool of men who’d gone to the screening.
That, along with the possibility of saving your life, is certainly worth ten minutes of non-wincing. To make an appointment for the next screening, or to arrange for Project Brotherhood to come to your organization, or to be in touch with Project Brotherhood’s Dr. Cardinale, the contact number is: 203 – 867-5479
I think it is a very good project. Catching Cancer early will save many lives especially the less priviledged population.