Our First BLOG by Anna Campbell.
Welcome to our first CanRehab monthly blog where we aim to update you with new exercise oncology research / guidelines and tell you more about the CanRehab Tutors and courses available.
Reflecting over 2021, one positive outcome from all the pandemic restrictions was that I (Prof Anna Campbell) managed to get the fittest I have been for years. I was able to run 10 miles without too much stress, cycle 50k once a week and even managing the odd wild swim. The main reasons for my behaviour change were that the barriers of time and fatigue were lessened by being able to work at home and not needing to travel 50 miles to and from Edinburgh Napier University each day.
There were some very sad events in 2021 which really affected me: the death of Gary MacDougall – a wonderful promoter of the benefits of exercising during pancreatic cancer treatment and many of you may have seen the video of him cycling during chemotherapy infusion (add link to video and paper). Also, the death of Dr Andy Sims who described himself on Twitter as “a dad, husband, son, runner, skier, climber, cyclist, lecturer, bioinformatician, cancer researcher and stage IV melanoma patient” https://www.ed.ac.uk/institute-genetics-cancer/news-and-events/news-2021/andy-sims-valued-colleague-and-respected-scientist Andy published a number of great research papers on the cellular impact of exercise on cancer recovery including a paper with me where we discuss the infiltration of immune cells into a tumour during a prehab exercise intervention https://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/clincanres/25/24/7609.full.pdf
From the start of the Pandemic in 2020 and end of 2021 with the online courses, CanRehab became established as an international entity! We ran 14 Specialist Instructor courses for student from countries as far as Brazil and Dubai. We were approached by ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine) which has more than 50,000 members from 90 countries to provide a CanRehab Training course for them. This course we hope will be available for appropriately qualified ACSM members in October 2022. In the meantime CanRehab has developed an introductory webinar “After a cancer diagnosis – why movement matters” for the ACSM to make available to their members and beyond . After successful completion of the integrated MCQ, this earns members CEC points (a measure of educational continuing Continuing Education Credits).
Lorna Reilly (CanRehab Director of Operations) has been working hard to ensure the new mode of course teaching ie synchronous online, runs smoothly and that applicants to various CanRehab courses are supported with accessible learning materials. Moving the multimodal assessments online proved a challenge but with the investment in a bespoke education platform we are happy that this is now user friendly as possible. The six-day CanRehab Specialist course has been finely tuned and we have tutor experts in all areas to ensure that students get high quality, relevant and up to date information.
We also have a brand new website (you are on it!) which will also make it easier to register for lots of new courses, CPDs and vlogs we aim to provide this year. Look out for the CanRehab membership which will give you discounts on courses and materials. We aim to post each month “Tuesday tutorial” where I will briefly review a recent or very important research article and provide a take home message for all CanRehab followers
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Next month: CanRehab tutor and oncology nurse tells you about her background and teaching from Quebec in Canada. We update you on Safefit Trial and CanRehab Trust