85,000 calls a month answered about Cancer

I want to post this so that all that support The American Cancer Society know that the National Call Center, one of our programs to support those dealing with cancer is a real benefit to more than a million people a year, and it's but one of the programs that your donor dollar supports. Thank you to all who support us!

This is a letter sent to us staff members from our CEO, on the 10th Anniversary of our National Cancer Information Center:

"The American Cancer Society is an organization with an impressive history of firsts to its credit. We were first to educate the public about the value of the Pap test in preventing and detecting cervical cancer, to confirm the link between smoking and lung cancer, and to establish mammography as the gold standard for the early detection of breast cancer.

Ten years ago, we became the first – and remain the only – organization to offer live cancer information 24 hours a day, seven days a week. When we opened our doors in January 1997, a staff of fewer than a dozen people responded to a total of 720 calls that first month. This year, as we celebrate the National Cancer Information Center’s (NCIC) tenth anniversary, that number has grown to about 450 staff members who field an average of 85,000 calls a month – well in excess of a million a year. We also respond to constituents electronically, answering more than 50,000 emails a year.

The NCIC is proof of both our progressive nature and our deep understanding of people touched by cancer. We know that questions about cancer aren’t limited to nine to five. They come at all hours of the day and night, and we recognized a decade ago that someone needs to be there to answer those questions – no matter when they arise.

This extraordinary, one-of-a-kind service has obvious implications for our mission. It’s clearly the most crucial way we’re making progress toward our 2015 goal of measurably improving the quality of life for people facing cancer. However, the NCIC is helping us make progress toward our other goals as well.

Our innovative clinical trials matching service helps people touched by cancer find clinical trials that may save their lives. In fact, some 4,000 people turned to our clinical trials specialists last year for help exploring all their treatment options. In addition to ensuring access to cutting edge medical care for these individuals, the clinical trials matching service has even broader benefit because each patient’s participation in a clinical trial fuels the research advances that have made such exciting progress against cancer – including two consecutive years of declining numbers of deaths – a reality.

But you don’t have to have cancer to benefit from NCIC’s services. The “worried well” constitute a portion of our callers, and the information we provide them about cancer prevention and early detection and healthy lifestyle choices is also fueling progress against the disease. For example, our award-winning colon cancer awareness campaign prompted the busiest single day in the history of the NCIC. In a single day, March 8, 2005, in response to a letter by former president Dr. Steve Sener to Dear Abby, 8,962 people called for information about how they could stop colon cancer before it started.

In addition to building awareness of early detection, the NCIC is making a significant contribution to another factor cited as a reason for recent declines in cancer deaths – tobacco cessation. Our Quitline – again the first of its kind – has been proven to double a smoker’s chances of quitting for good. Last year alone, NCIC completed 62,000 Quitline® sessions and provided 42,000 tobacco cessation counseling services.

I hope you will join me in offering the National Cancer Information Center our heartfelt congratulations on 10 years of success and our best wishes for a bright future. The center recently moved into a new, state-of-the art facility that will empower the American Cancer Society to expand the already impressive level of life-affirming support we offer to constituents and to deliver on our mission of moving toward a future in which cancer no longer threatens the people we love."

John

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John R. Seffrin, PhD
Chief Executive Officer