March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month!

March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.   This brings two important opportunities to each of us:  a) to provide information to the community regarding this prevalent disease; b) to promote awareness of ourselves and our roles with regard to colorectal cancer screening, prevention and treatment.

Communicate directly with your patients:

• Offer an ASCRS colorectal cancer screening brochure to your patients. Click here to download.
• Customize and provide your hospital public relations department with an article for use in a patient newsletter. Click here to download.
• Display colorectal cancer awareness posters in your office and hospital:
        March is Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month
        Are You at Risk for Colorectal Cancer
        6 Steps to Lowering Your Risk of Colorectal Cancer
• Hold a patient education program in your office. Click here for instructions on how to hold a patient education seminar.  Click here and here for media materials you can use to raise awareness of your seminar.

Utilize the media to convey your message:

• Call the media and invite them to write a story about colorectal cancer. Click here for a document explaining how to conduct a media relations effort in your area.
• Distribute a cover "pitch" letter and press release about the Month to your local media. Click here to download a cover "pitch" letter and here for a customizable news release.
• Submit an op-ed opinion piece to your local newspaper. Click here for a sample op-ed piece.
• If you have successfully treated a local celebrity--such as a sports figure--for colorectal cancer, contact them to see if he or she would be willing to conduct media relations with you on the importance of early screening.
• Send camera-ready articles to your local newspaper. Click here to download article.
• Distribute a packet of colorectal cancer information to reporters in your area. Click here for backgrounders, here for fact sheets, here for a patient success story, and here for a radio public service announcement script.

Improve patient screening and follow-up efforts in your practice:

• Click here for a document explaining how one colorectal surgery practice streamlined and standardized their screening and follow-up process, resulting in significant improvement in patient care and office efficiency.

To supplement your efforts, ASCRS will:

• Conduct a national media relations effort to encourage the media to do stories on colorectal cancer that feature colorectal surgeons as expert sources of information. 
• Post information for consumers and the media about colorectal cancer on this Web site.

We hope you will take advantage of the materials and links we have provided, to maximize the value of National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month to your practice and your community.

Sincerely,

Deborah Nagle, MD, Chair
Public Relations Committee