CHICAGO – Writing from the press room of AACR’s annual meeting, I’m surrounded by reminders that what we do as cancer center communicators and marketers is a team effort.
Present are colleagues from UCSF, the University of Colorado, Dana-Farber, Mass General, Mayo, the University of Michigan, Moffitt, NYU Langone, UNC, UPenn, UPMC, Roswell Park and elsewhere, each of us working to share the good news emanating from our labs and clinics. Sure, there’s competition as we vie for the attention of reporters and patients. But the underlying collegiality, even camaraderie, speaks to who we are as people and to the missions of the institutions we represent.
PAMN encourages and aims to foster collegiality and continuous improvement, for our cancer centers and, ultimately, cancer patients. We hope those who attended our annual conference last month in Seattle witnessed and experienced these principles.
In continuation of this focus, I invite you to take your involvement with PAMN to the next level. Please consider one or more of these worthwhile actions:
- If you attended our 2018 conference, share your thoughts about it.
- Set up your myPAMN account.
- Invite a colleague to join you as an active PAMN member.
- Follow us on Facebook ,Twitter and LinkedIn.
- Read the PAMN blog.
- For the blog, submit a brief case study or an announcement about an individual or cancer center success to publicaffairsnetwork@gmail.com.
- Register for the next webinar.
- Present a success story in an upcoming webinar. (Send ideas to publicaffairsnetwork@gmail.com.)
- Save the date for our 2019 conference, April 8-11, at Stephenson Cancer Center in Oklahoma City.
- Send other ideas to me at jgoodwin@wustl.edu.
As AACR 2018 closes and we look forward to ASCO’s annual meeting in June, where our cancer centers will share even more scientific and medical advances, let us remember that our purpose is common. Whether in a lab or clinic, a cubical, corner office or press room, what we do affects people in need. What a shared sense of mission.
Jim Goodwin
Chair, PAMN
Assoc. Director of Strategic Communication, Siteman Cancer Center