AHA!!!

This week was a nice break from the normal lecture with our guest speaker. Having Rob come to the class to speak about his work at ACS through marketing and advertising was really nice. His passion for his work was really inspiring for me personally. Its really funny because I think life is really funny in a way. I have always been interested in working in the field of Cancer since I was in high school with my dream of being an pediatric oncologist. After being a Biology major, I realized that I could never be a doctor, but Public Health was the way for me to go. The summer before I started the program I worked with an organization called PADRES Contra El Cancer (Parents Against Cancer), which really opened my eyes to how cancer affects the family as a whole when a child is diagnosed with cancer. Just like Rob mentioned, cancer affects the whole family, especially the siblings of those with a brother or sister with cancer. Then I came to the program and am currently working on a project that is being funded by ACS. AND now, I have just been offered and accepted a Fellowship doing Cancer Research and Prevention in Puerto Rico. So it was quite nice to hear Rob talk about his work at ACS because it reaffirmed my desire to work in Cancer field. Who knows, maybe I'll eventually do some health communication related to cancer in the future...we just never know where our lives will take us. My little Aha moment of this week. =)

Besides the guest presentation, I must add that I found this weeks article was quite interesting. It funny to think that all the current ties with different food products and big name health organizations all started with Kellogg's partnership with NCI on their Kellogg All-Bran cereal campaign. As Izzybeth mentioned, I have seen the AHA adds on Cheerios and other countless adds on other foods as well. Its really smart on behalf of these companies to tie with such large food organizations to help bring their message across, which ultimately benefits both organizations.

On another note, I think we are moving forward on our project which I think is great! One step at a time group, we can do it!