The Bone Cancer Research Trust and Sarcoma UK are launching a new collaboration, aiming to increase awareness of sarcoma amongst medical students. The first stage of the collaboration builds on awareness work being undertaken by both charities, the launch of a survey to collect data from medical students across the UK to inform next stages of the project.
The Bone Cancer Research Trust and Sarcoma UK are national UK charities, dedicated to improving outcomes for sarcoma patients. Through research conducted by both organisations, we know that sarcoma patients experience significant delays with diagnosis and when eventually diagnosed, often have advanced disease.
Both charities are passionate about improving awareness of the symptoms of sarcoma, particularly among healthcare professionals, and feel this is key to ensuring sarcoma patients are diagnosed at the earliest possible stage, giving them the best chance of a positive outcome.
Improving awareness among medical students is particularly important as they are our future GPs, Radiologists, A&E and orthopaedic doctors, who are critical in the diagnostic journey of sarcoma patients.
Through our new collaboration we aim to develop a new approach to supporting medical students, providing them with education on sarcomas in the most effective and efficient way. To inform our approach, our short survey aims to gather data on current understanding of sarcoma and any variation across the UK in the taught curriculum in this topic.
Speaking about this new collaboration, Dr Zoe Davison, Head of Research, Information & Support at the Bone Cancer Research Trust said:
We are delighted to be working with Sarcoma UK on this new collaboration. As a like-minded organisation that shares our passion for improving patient outcomes, we feel that by working together we will make a much greater impact and educate more medical students than if we were to try and tackle this issue independently.
All UK medical students are encouraged to complete the short survey which will remain open until Monday 5th April.