The Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) has started the implementation of a rigorous Breast and Bowel Cancer Screening Physician Training.
Focused on two cancer-screening areas: Breast Cancer Screening and Bowel Cancer Screening, the initial part of the training emphasized on the awareness campaign in preparation for the launch of the new cancer screening services to be conducted by PHCC.
More than 500 PHCC Clinical Staff comprising of Primary Care and Family Physicians, as well as Clinical Head Nurses took part in the Physician Training conducted over eleven sessions both at Health Centers and Convention Conference Venues.
Mariam Ali Abdulmalik, M.D., Managing Director of PHCC, the lead implementing agency of the Breast and Bowel Cancer Screening Program said: “PHCC and its partners are well-focused on a mission of ensuring the success of the program. Accordingly, we pay meticulous attention to every detail in fulfilling our job. This includes the conduct of sessions aimed at identifying, outlining and documenting the training needed for PHCC physicians to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to effectively implement cancer screening services in Qatar. These trainings also aim to define and document the strategies, activities, tasks, methodology and processes that will be followed to adequately meet training requirements.”
“At the initial phase of the training, it is therefore important that clinical staff learn how to emphasize the fact that the decision to undergo cancer screening procedures impacts not only the patient,” she added.
Among the topics covered by the training included an introduction to the program, initial project background and partners (SMS/RadNet/FUJI), scope of services, timeline of service locations, basic understanding of Breast and Bowel Cancer, Cancer Screening, Qatar National Guidelines, communicating results to patients, and the importance of Health Care Providers’ encouraging their patients to undergo screening.
Among the key strategies of the training is to empower physicians to drive participation to the cancer-screening program. This can be achieved by providing both clear objectives and understanding of the program. In addition to the clinical training component, emphasis about cultural attitudes and inhibitions, attitudes toward self-examination, attitudes toward discussing with family / loved ones, attitudes toward discussing with physicians, attitudes toward being tested and attitudes toward taking action was discussed.
Nastaran Fatemi M.D., International Medical Director for RadNet said: “While all of PHCC’s personnel involved in the program are all highly-educated and skilled professionals, the whole purpose of the training sessions is to further add to those knowledge and skills by ensuring a unified action towards the program’s goals and objectives. Thus, through such training, we focus on the delivery of a quality of service that takes into account cultural attitudes, general statistics and the country’s national guidelines on cancer.
“This training plan therefore targets those physicians who are the first point of contact for patient care,” she added. “For the promotion of this new screening services, we have deployed a well-developed strategy with concrete goals and objectives to build internal referrals.”
