NorCal CarciNet Community is now approaching the end of its seventh year as an independent Carcinoid Neuroendocrine Community.
It has been another exciting year for us. In January 2014, NorCal CarciNet held its third annual NETs conference at UC Berkeley, which was attended by more than 150 community members.
The day included an introduction to NET’s, Diagnostics and Imaging, Treatment of NET’s, Integrative Care and Emotional Support. Presenters included some of the leading NET specialists from around the world: Emily Bergsland - UCSF, Eric Nakakura – UCSF, Thomas O’Dorisio – University of Iowa, Dieter Horsch – Zentralklinik, Germany, Andrei Iagaru – Stanford, Lorenzo Cohen – MD Anderson and our own Josh Mailman, among others. Saturday morning before the conference we hosted a breakfast with Dr. Yi-Zarn Wang from Ochsner’s Neuroendocrine Tumor Program in Louisiana. These events were a great success and helped many attendees better understand their disease and the options available to them. Thanks to funding from the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, recordings from the conference are available online..
NorCal CarciNet Community, with the help of Todd Lloyd, participated in the Oakland Running Festival to help raise awareness of Neuroendocrine tumors. It was a great success. We had over 50 runners participate and raised over $6,000 for our community. We hope to have over 100 join us walking or running on March 22, 2015 as we make this an annual event. Click here to sign up for 2015.
In 2014, NorCal CarciNet continued to provide exceptional speakers at our bimonthly meetings from both the medical and CarciNet community. We have continued our networking sessions, helping new patients with ideas for different treatment options and offering the support groups’ collective experience in seeking additional opinions from specialists around the world. In December, we will expand our breakout session to include the children in our community through a facilitated Kids Talk session. We continue to invite NET professionals to join us at our upcoming support group meetings and we always welcome new ideas and suggestions for future meetings.
NorCal CarciNet Community was proud to award the first Jeanette Shaffner Education Travel Grants in 2014 in honor of Jeanette Shaffner, the founder of NorCal CarciNet. Two NET patients from Northern California were awarded $1,000 each for travel expenses to attend the National NET conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. Each recipient gave a talk at our October meeting explaining what they learned at the conference. NorCal CarciNet also awarded two travel grants to medical staff members at UCSF and Stanford for travel to the annual NANETs (North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society) meeting.
In 2014 our president, Josh Mailman, was an invited speaker at several national and international conferences, most notably a plenary talk at the British Society of Nuclear Medicine held in England this past March. NorCal CarciNet also co-hosted a patient education day at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) conference for over 150 patients. Josh made two trips to Washington D.C. to work with SNMMI and to educate members of Congress on NETs.
We try very hard to provide all of these services at little or no cost; however, there are always bills to be paid, rent for our meeting space at the Cancer Support Community, costs associated with hosting conferences, speakers traveling from out of town and other related expenses. All board members volunteer their time and there are no salaries paid. NorCal CarciNet is self-funded by our members. Our ability to provide these services, awareness programs and the conference at little or no charge is directly related to our fundraising efforts.
Please join us in making your tax-deductible donation to NorCal CarciNet.
Your donations make all of these services possible for our group as well as for the next NET patients diagnosed who will need our support.
With sincere gratitude, NorCal CarciNet Community.