Organizations like Susan G. Komen, The American Cancer Society and Save The Ta-Tas Foundation have done a very good job of promoting awareness of breast cancer among women. These organizations—and many others—have also funded advocacy initiatives, provided assistance to women on many levels and have raised funds that are used in breast cancer research.
But there is an important piece of the puzzle that’s missing.
Technology and our understanding of breast cancer are advancing faster than most organizations—and doctors—can keep up. Information is fractionalized within individual specialties. State laws vary, which means that how much a woman knows about her breast cancer risk actually varies by where she lives. And the media? Well, they have a knack for getting it wrong quite often… and even more disturbing, they seem to relish in the controversy that conflicting messages can generate.
Physicians, especially those specialized in primary care, have become so busy that it is virtually impossible for them to stay current on all of the medical advances that are relevant to their patient base. What’s more, their desire for the utopian notion of “professional consensus” before they change the way they practice medicine ensures that progress remains extremely slow.
Because whenever there is a battle for dollars being waged, “consensus” is never really achieved.
