Darius Benimana: Recommendations from PALC25
Darius Benimana, Medical Student at University of Rwanda, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Recommendations from PALC25.
As a young cancer advocate, I had the opportunity to attend the first Pan African conference on Lung cancer which took place in Accra, Ghana between 31st January -01st February 2025.
I have attended two workshops: Patient advocacy workshop and Clinical trials workshop.
I also attended other sessions including : Diagnosing Lung Cancer, Multi disciplinary Care of Lung Cancer, Systemic Therapy for Lung Cancer, Special Issues in Lung Cancer in Sub-Saharan Africa.
I have come to the following recommendations from attending this conference:
- Avoiding putting lung cancer in the shadow of tuberculosis for some African countries, putting strategies and improving the care for it.
- Always having the cancer clinical trials within an African country to improve the patient care and ensures the treatment.
- Putting on the national cancer control strategies by qualified experts and inviting the stakeholders to approve and support the implementation.
- Putting the policy for the people in the mining sector, preventing them from being exposed to lung cancer carcinogens and ensuring the better monitoring of those policies.
- Improving on sharing experience and basing on the real data in the introduction and implementation of the lung cancer control programs.
- Hosting future IASLC meetings in Rwanda Providing an effective teaching strategy for the medical students, allowing them to learn and exposing themselves to lung cancer cases at majority.
- For doctors, ensure that they advocate for their patients who receive substandard products in their country, and even sensitize doctors to provide a full explanation to their patients of the type and quality of the treatment they are offering to the patients.
- Improving the advocacy for cancer medications to be readily available and affordable in all countries in Africa and wherever possible develop financial navigators who help in reducing the financial toxicity for cancer patients.
- Developing the early screening guidelines for lung cancer in all African countries.
For young people in Africa, advocacy isn’t limited by age or level, it’s time to contribute to sustainable health systems in our countries.”
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