All of our individual business and personal lives have come to a screeching halt with the pandemic. Each of us is in the process of slowly awakening to this profound shift. Everyone in our cancer world is realizing that we all need to change the way we develop our working partnerships.
We in PALTOWN recognize that we must approach our patient training programs in a different way.
It’s also important to note that the lives of cancer patients have been thrown into even more chaos with not only the onset of the pandemic, but with the measures to contain it. Read this article from the Lancet about the real risks associated with the reality of COVID 19 for cancer patients.
Our patients and caregivers need our continuing and consistent support now more than ever.
WE ARE EXPERTS IN TRAINING AND EDUCATION
The founders of PALTOWN have been providing online support and education for almost ten years. We are experts in creating and scaling member engagement that is built upon trust, while shepherding patients through COLONTOWN – our colorectal cancer town.
We intend to build upon this expertise by providing even more interconnection for patients, colleagues, and partners, utilizing online capabilities to their fullest extent.
Our model is built upon a premise: we patients will seek to do whatever we can do to survive. Our survival may depend upon our learning where to go, who to contact, how to find the experts. The connections and scientific knowledge found in COLONTOWN are our lifeline, and we patients know that. One of the consistent “attractor factors” of COLONTOWN is the fact that we provide instant, experienced guidance right from the entrance through our “front door,” and our well-known generous hospitality.
IN-PERSON TO ONLINE TRAININGS
We are pleased to announce that PALTOWN is moving forward on all our planned educational training offerings by actively exploring current technological options and integrating best practices for online learning into our programming.
We intend to hold our first virtual Empowering Patient Leaders Workshop later this spring. This event will be modeled on our successful workshop series of the last two years. The EPLs provide community leadership training and disease education for COLONTOWN members who want to step up and help manage the many neighborhoods in COLONTOWN.
TOM’S TRIALS NAVIGATORS: We also plan to roll out our much-anticipated clinical trials navigation curriculum this spring, beginning with virtual components.
MORE CONNECTIVITY: Lastly, we will explore even more ways to connect our patients with each other AND the broader biomedical research community through innovative online technologies.
For my part, I am excited about the opportunity to more deeply engage in our electronic communications: face to face, one to many, and all ONLINE.
With great gratitude for your continuing support for our commitment to patients and caregivers, we continue to embrace this brave new world of online learning and connection!
Erika Hanson Brown, CEO
We wish to give special thanks to our educational funding partners: Taiho Oncology, Bristol Myers Squibb, Haliodx, & Natera. We would like to offer our continuing support to all of our colleagues in the colorectal cancer awareness world: Fight Colorectal Cancer, Colorectal Cancer Alliance, Colon Cancer Coalition, Colon Cancer Foundation, Wunderglo, The Blue Hat Foundation, American Cancer Society.