With over 25 years of experience of teaching about cancer I started experimenting with webinars about 5 years ago…and they have gone from strength to strength. But I must say it took some getting used to. Using webinars for teaching is very different from using webinars as a marketing or selling strategy.

As a teaching aid it is very convenient, no travelling, easy set up, and a good use of time. But it is not a face-to-face interaction so you can not easily rely on body language to assess the impact on what you are saying.

How do you know people are understanding the important points, how do you know they are even paying attention! Here are some helpful hints for those attending, and for those delivering webinars, put together with Vicky Tudge, ACC and clinical coding trainer.

Webinars Helpful Hints & Tips:

• Location

1. • Set up a room in which you can guarantee you won’t be disturbed, either at home or in the office.

• • Ensure effective lighting so that the delegates can see you clearly

• Set up
  • Ensure, before you start that you have all your books, notes, pen, drink, etc to hand. Set up a ‘command centre’ so that everything is within easy reach.
  • Bookmark pages or make a note of page numbers for quick reference

• Switching on the camera (if you are using, which I think is preferable)
  • They can see you but you can’t see them! Prepare to see yourself on the camera and learn to ignore yourself. You need to be looking at your delegates by looking directly at the camera icon in the middle of the laptop or monitor. How they see you is completely different to how you see yourself

• Navigating around WebEx (other webinar platforms are also very user-friendly)
  • A very easy to use system once you have had chance to practice. It is as easy to use as PowerPoint, and some versions of PowerPoint have the facility to type and use highlighters/pointers etc. so practising that way would be advantageous
  • The chat box becomes your communication, in exactly the same way you would scan the room and listen for questions, keep your eye on the chat box for any questions or answers to questions that pop up. This is especially challenging with many delegates but comes with practice.
  • The slide you see is what you get – there is no excessive clicking through animation allowing you to concentrate on delivering the Key Learning Point in question.

• Presenting / training
  • In contrast to a classroom training environment a webinar puts your presentation skills to use. The session, by nature, is not as interactive but you can ask as many questions as you feel comfortable with by asking for answers in the chat box.
  • Don’t allow your eyes to stray too much around the screen, the camera is your eye contact and the point where you should spend most of your time looking at. Just like you wouldn’t ‘talk to a flipchart’ make sure you don’t ‘talk to the chat box’!

• Relax and enjoy!
  • Presenting via WebEx is a relatively new concept for coding training but one which we should embrace for the future. Trainers and delegates alike will find their time is much more utilised than traditional classroom methods, through reduction in travelling time, room booking and limited delegates. The sessions are short and purposeful.

The last point here is very true. I really enjoy presenting via webinars, and the feedback I get tells me that those who attend really appreciate the webinar experience. It is the responsibility of the presenter to make the webinars as interesting and interactive as the technology allows. Practice really does make perfect.

Yes things do go wrong…but then how many of us have been late for work or a meeting because of traffic chaos. How many have had to attend to urgent things and  has impacted on the working day.

These things happen. In the same way webinars can be interrupted by technical issues…internet problems…audio problems. these sometimes cannot be helped and people need to be aware of this from the outset.

I have nothing but positive thoughts about webinars and their impact on my future services and feel confident that when you invest in a webinar with me you will not be disappointed…and in fact want to come back for more!

Hope you found this useful. If you did please share with others. And if you would like to find out more about my webinars then email me or check out my website.

’till next time

David

Introduction to Cancer, Preston, 6th October.

Please join us at Cotton Court on Thursday 6th October for this amazing study day.

“I can’t believe I managed to understand so much complex information in one day, it is all thanks to a great teacher. I was impressed by how much we managed to cover over the day.”

JD, Public Affairs, CRUK

To understand Leukaemia you first need an understanding of how blood cells are formed within the bone marrow. David will explain how the common signs & symptoms of Leukaemia can be related back to this blood cell production. Join me for this webinar and learn the fundamentals of leukaemia.

 “I think it all went very well, it was very interesting and informative. As a new member to the Haematology Trials Unit specifically AML it was a really good introduction to Leukemia and the different types also the information regarding the different cells and their role. Thank you David, you explained it very well and it was easy to follow”

AA, Data Manager

Book Here

Around 30% of non-small cell lung cancer NSCLC) patients will present or develop with brain metastases. For a long time doctors have given radiotherapy to the whole brain to try and alleviate potential symptoms, improve quality of life and maybe increase survival. The results of this trial suggest that whole brain radiotherapy does not improve on these things and indeed might even make quality of life worse.

So importantly we have now found out that whole brain radiotherapy for this group of patients is not necessary. But why is this important?

Radiotherapy treatment involves daily visits to a radiotherapy department. In the Quartz trial this involved one visit per day for 5 days.

Visiting a radiotherapy department can sometimes be a logistical nightmare for our patients. Parking is difficult, and sometimes expensive. A lot of our cancer centres are not blessed with good public transport links, and getting lifts might mean someone taking time off work. For many patients coming daily for radiotherapy can be quite an expensive outlay, sandwiches are bought, cups of coffee are bought, parking paid for, bus fare and so on. So knowing that a visit is no longer necessary will actually reduce this stress for a good many people.

Radiotherapy also involves side effects. Brain irradiation can cause the hair on the head to fall out. The brain and associated tissues within the skull will swell, causing headaches and sometimes a feeling of nausea, and sometimes vomiting. The scalp may get red , dry and itchy. Furthermore patients may experience general lethargy. This might be result of the radiotherapy but it is also exacerbated by the daily chore of visiting the radiotherapy department.

So it is a win for the patient but it is also a win for the NHS. Money is saved, and the over-burdened radiotherapy department can use their time treating people that will benefit from the treatment.

Malignant melanoma (MM) can be an aggressive type of skin cancer and in the UK over the last 10 years or so, there has been a 59% increase in the number of men with MM and a 36% increase in women (Source: Cancer Research UK).  That represents about 14,500 new cases, which is about 4% of the total number of cancer diagnosed in the UK.

It is not the actual number (new cases) that are the issue here, they are not huge. It is the percentage increase that is huge. When you get percentage increases as large as this, the graph hits a take-off point where it gets steeper and steeper. We are just about at that take off point here in the UK, if we do not ‘nip it in the bud’ now, we will begin to see large numbers.

Malignant Melanoma incidence, in the UK, has increased by 360% since the 1970s (see graph below).

European Aged Standardised Incidence rates per 100,000, GB, by sex. Source Cancer Research UK

Question: What happened in the UK in the 1970s?

Answer: Package holidays!

For the first time we, as a nation, were able to afford to go abroad on holiday to hot, sunny places!

I remember the 70s quite well, but there is one thing that I do not remember. I have no recollection of my parents ever putting suncream on me as a child. It was not as readily available as it is now.

So when you combine hot sunny holidays with no sun protection, you start to get an increase in numbers of skin cancers. You can see by the graph that since the 70s the incidence rates have got steadily up year on year.

Risk of MM is related to UV radiation exposure which we get mainly in sunlight, however sunbeds are also becoming an ever increasing problem. It seems that we in the UK will go to extremes to get our ‘sun’ fix. Tanning salons seem to be sprouting up all over the place.

Think about what happens when we (I am using the royal ‘we’ here as I do not frequent sunbeds!) visit a sunbed. We take all out clothes off. Now, parts of our body that ordinarily we would cover up on the beach, are now exposed to high levels of UV radiation. And I do not know anyone who goes on a sunbed, who puts on sun block!

So not only are people exposing parts of their body, which are not used to it, to these high levels of UV radiation, but they are doing it unprotected! And we wonder why we are getting the levels of MM that we are!

The point is, there is a risk involved in exposing the body to high levels of UV radiation. Yes, I know we need UV exposure to generate Vitamin D, but only about 20mins a day on normally exposed area is sufficient. Overall, high exposure of UV is not that good for us and will generally increase the risk of MM.

So please take care in the sun, and unless you need to for medical reasons, stay off sunbeds! There is some great advice at the Cancer Research UK website amongst others

I nearly forgot, how did I get on at the Doctors?

Well, it was not MM! It was a Seborrhoeic Keratosis. Apparently you start to get them as you get older!

But the point is, I was worried, so I got it checked out!

Was I wasting the Doctors time…definitely not!

If you are worried about a mole or any other skin lesion, please get it checked out. Especially in the case of malignant melanoma early diagnosis really does save lives, with the vast majority of people diagnosed at early stage surviving.

If you would like to know more about skin cancer, and cancer in general then book yourself on one of my webinars or courses. More details can be found at my website. Or contact me here on LinkedIn or email doh@ohconsultancy.co.uk.

‘till next time

David

David is a Specialist in Cancer Education & Training. With over 25years of experience as a cancer educator you can rest assured that you will further your cancer knowledge with his expert advice and guidance.

Lots of fantastic feedback from my recent course for the Cancer Survival Research Group at LSHTM. For the full report follow this link.

• 100% said the course would benefit their working practice
• 100% said the course would be useful to their colleagues
• “I really enjoyed the course, David! The examples that you made helped me a lot to understand things that were very confused in my mind. For example, the difference between well and poorly differentiated cancer cells? How not to make confusion? Just remember the piece of paper :))) Thank you David!”
• “Exercises/tests given were good for reinforcing topics covered. Analogies really useful/ Visualisations helped me remember concepts. Clear explanations for complex concepts. Discussions were good for outlining real life examples. Good balance of question time and sessions. David was approachable. Course was fun and engaging.”

For more information on how my course could help you email me at doh@ohconsultancy.co.uk

• 100% of the delegates said they would recommend the course!
• 99.4% rated the ‘effectiveness of the speaker’ as excellent!
• 73% of attendees thought that they would change their working practice as a result of attending the course.
• “It was a fab course, really interesting and I gained a lot of knowledge. Dave is a brilliant teacher, his approach is fantastic”
• “Really interesting, passionate and engaging speaker, great way of explaining things using everyday objects/visual techniques”.
• “This was a great course to consolidate knowledge about cancer. Complex items were explained clearly and broken down in a way that helps the attendees to truly understand. The trainer had detailed knowledge of the subject and took time to answer questions”.
• “Excellent content, intense but I feel I have increased my knowledge, speaker was bril, made it interesting and as easy as he could – 10/10”.

A copy of the full report can be downloaded here. If you would like more information as to how this or other courses can benefit your working practice then please feel free to email me: doh@ohconsultancy.co.uk

Live, one hour lecturers over the internet. Your Essential Guide to Cancer starts here. With many topic areas to choose from you can feel assurred that there is a webinar that will enhance your cancer knowldge. Fun, interactive and relevant these Essential Guides are all you need make sure that your cancer knowldge is as good as it can be. Check out the webinar schedule here and find out more about the webinar here.

Am I being pedantic?

I am passionate about cancer and, in particular, cancer education. I feel that we will not ‘cure’ our way out of this cancer epidemic, but we may be able to ‘learn’ our way out. Cancer education is a vital part in the war against cancer, and as such we should use cancer terminology correctly. We should be as unambiguous as possible with the words we use to describe this disease.

Carcinoma is derived from the Greek ‘karkinoma’ meaning sore or ulcer. It is a term which is used to represent cancer developing in ‘epithelial tissue’, and only epithelial tissue. Note, we call tumour deriving from connective tissue (bone, cartilage etc) – ‘Sarcoma’.

Epithelial tissue is usually found lining the inner surface of our organs. We call this the ‘mucosa’. (Note: our skin is also made up of epithelial tissue!).

Consider the diagram below of a typical ‘hollow’ organ within the body for example, bladder, colon, oesophagus…

Typical Hollow organ structure:

Here you can clearly see it is the mucosa that is made up of epithelial tissue. The organ itself, is made up of the mucosa surrounded by layers of connective tissues.

Your mouth is made up of layers of tissue like this, as is your oesophagus, your stomach, your intestines…

Imagine you drink your alcohol, eat your ‘bad’ food, smoke your cigarette…which layer of tissue is going to get damaged?…yes the mucosa…which is made up of epithelial tissue!

No surprises then, that the vast majority of cancers are of epithelial tissue. Therefore, we come across that term ‘carcinoma’ more often…and therefore, we think of it as a general term for cancer! However, it isn’t. It is very specific and refers to a cancer developing in epithelial tissue and only epithelial tissue!

So please think on when using this terminology. Make sure you use it to describe exactly what you want to describe and eliminate any possible confusion.

If you would like to know more about cancer terminology, then please take a look at my website www.ohconsultancy.co.uk

‘till next time

David