Once upon a time medical students did not hear very much about either NET or CS. I’ve told the story here before about Jane’s initial diagnosis and the reaction of both her primary care doctor and her first oncologist: neither knew much about the disease.
That seems to be changing.
My niece is currently a medical student. She is currently preparing for the first phase of her medical boards. In her first two years of medical school courses NET and CS have come up three times.
Admittedly, she may be more sensitive to NET/CS as an issue because of what happened to her aunt. The terms may register more deeply with her as a result when she hears them. Still, the fact is this particular form of cancer is coming up in her medical school classes despite its general status among many in the medical community as a zebra.
She tells me the topic first came up when they were studying the heart as one potential cause of right sided heart failure. It came up again when they discussed the gastrointestinal system, and again when they talked about the neuroendocrine system.
Of course three mentions over the course of two years does not seem like a lot. But given the overwhelming number of things that have to be covered in those
first two years, any mention at all is a plus. Combine that with the knowledge that the courses are geared toward preparing students for the overarching medical board exam and it would seem, at least to a layman’s eyes, the NET/CS has gained somewhat greater visibility–if not importance–in the world of medical training.
I have talked before about the importance of early detection when it comes to NET, one major step in the process of discovering more cases of NET/CS sooner is raising awareness among medical professionals about this peculiar form of cancer. My niece’s program seems to be doing exactly that.
And if all the medical schools in the country are based on preparing students for the same exam, then it would seem logical that other programs must be doing the same thing.
That could be really good news.
