Breast cancer is one of the leading killers of women. According to breastcancer.org, every 3 minutes a woman in the United States is diagnosed with breast cancer. And 40, 970 women were expected to die in 2006 from the disease.
I'm on a medical/surgical unit and as part of our admission assessment we ask if the patient performs breast self examination (BSE). Although I've never performed an official statistical analysis of the number of women who answer "no" during the admission, I would guess that it's roughly 60%.
In some ways, I'm discouraged by the lack of knowledge when it comes to BSE. However, my excitement returns when I realize the teaching opportunity available and potentially changing someones perspective and behavior. There are many factors that may contribute to women not performing BSE such as culture, age, and discomfort among other things. However, in most cases, it's a lack of education. 
Below I've listed several websites that provide a wealth of information on breast cancer.
Check them out!! Once you've looked them over, post a comment and respond to this statement:
Summarize the 5 steps of Breast Self Examination.
3 comments:
This is a topic of reat interest to me having worked as a breast service coordinator as well as having a family member with breast cancer. I would like to see more articles targeted at the men who also need to do BSE.
I know more and more people who have breast cancer and do not have the risk factors (familial history) normally associated with this disease. I thought the self exam information on the web site you posted was great.
eileen
good job with the links but add some specific questions
anna
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