KUWAIT: Chairman of the Board of the National Cancer Awareness Campaign (CAN) Dr Khalid Al-Saleh announced the launch of new specialized courses for primary care doctors, dentists and nurses starting mid-October until mid-November in cooperation with the Ministry of Health. Dr Al-Saleh said the courses are aimed at training primary care doctors, dentists and nurses on communication skills while dealing with patients and their families, particularly cancer patients.

He said that 1,343 dentists were trained on early detection or oral cancer, in addition to 1,439 primary care doctors and 2,551 nurses. He added that the training courses are within the continued efforts of CAN to achieve its goal to spread awareness about cancer, which has in part specialized courses for dentists on visual detection of oral tumors. He said CAN trains nurses on communications skills with patients and their families, especially cancer patients, in addition to having prepared an integrated program presented by oncologists.

He said the interest in training nurses is due to their proximity to the patient and his family, and the same for doctors, as training them on correct information about cancer diseases, and all that enable them to answer any question in a correct scientific way. Dr Al-Saleh said nurses are the ones who implement and serve prescribed medicines by doctors. They are the pillars in presenting the treatment so it is important to care for their health knowledge in regards to cancer diseases.

He said those courses must continue about recognizing the first signs of tumors as an important aspect of early diagnoses of tumors at their early stages which helps in raising the recovery rate. Dr Khalid Al-Saleh thanked the Health Ministry for its interest in training its employees to refresh their information and give them skills and experiences that will help them in carrying out their job at their best.