It’s a terrifying reality: cancer claims the life of just about one American every minute. That’s 1,500 people a day. Another 3,400 a day are diagnosed with cancer. It’s practically an epidemic, and it’s time to get smarter about stopping it.

The first step in that direction? The Ruesch Center‘s three-part symposium, Fighting a Smarter War Against Cancer, to be held December 1-3, 2011, on the campuses of Georgetown University and Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. The symposium is FREE and open to the public.

Fighting a Smarter War Against Cancer will bring together top thought leaders and health care practitioners from the U.S. and around the world to discuss cancer care in relation to public policy, value, and personalized medicine. Topics include Health Care Reform: Opportunity or Sacrifice?, Defining Value in Cancer Care, and Navigating Cancer Care: What Every Patient Should Know.

Why the link under “Navigating Cancer Care: What Every Patient Should Know”? Because if you can only attend one day of this symposium, that’s the seminar to select. Moderated by my late husband’s oncologist and the associate director of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Dr. John L. Marshall, and featuring presentations by several of the super smart, dedicated doctors and nurses who cared for him, it’s being held Saturday, December 3rd, from 8am-1pm, at the Georgetown University Hotel and Conference Center and, frankly, if they’d offered it when Stu and I practically lived at Lombardi? I’d have been the first to register.

If cancer has touched your life or the life of someone you love, spend a day (or three) getting smarter about fighting back. Register today and please, forward this post to your friends.

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Please Help Fight GI Cancer
Part of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, the mission of the Otto J. Ruesch Center for the Cure of Gastrointestinal Cancers is to refocus national efforts on this set of deadly diseases, aiming to fight a smarter war against cancer. Combining expertise in molecular medicine, translational research, and a patient-centered philosophy, the Ruesch Center strives to improve treatment outcomes through research, care and advocacy.  Gifts to the Ruesch Center are invited and appreciated. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation. Please contact the Lombardi Gift Line at (202) 687-2222 or give online through Georgetown Lombardi’s secure giving portal.