Good evening family and friends and I welcome you to this month’s uh rendition of the Omega Sci-Fi fraternity second district um health and wellness webinar we like to uh talk about prevention and have conversation about how it relates to our people so uh and to that end we
Have a very very special program for you tonight I hope you will certainly enjoy it because we have some interesting things we need to talk about tonight as you know this is uh colar rectal cancer month kidney cancer month and M multiple M awareness month we’ve chose to
Concentrate tonight on colon cancer and it’s and it’s different um aspects of it and so the information presented tonight and the discussion and topics presented tonight are and opinions are those of the individual Brothers and or presenters and do not represent the opinions of the Omega scii Fraternity
Incorporated so again our purpose is to talk about prevention and how to deal with issues in our in our web space in our um space and in our commun but before we get started I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome our brothers and have them give their
Open remarks now our our chairman Dr Jan Phillips may or may not be able to be with us tonight as he has some other obligations but he’s TR to log on if he can but nonetheless we’re still going to take this to the highest level so with
That aspect I want go ahead and ask Dr Isabelle if you would come on and give us your opening remarks please good evening um once again Dr Lee Isabelle Bo Sur by intern of medicine also um HIV Primary Care um M perspective regarding uh colon cancer screening it probably has affected every
One family member or everyone knows somebody who probably had colon cancer thank you to be here thank you Dr Isel is Dr plumber here did Dr plumber make it on okay we’ll go ahead and go ahead with Dr Ford would you give us your open remarks please good evening and uh thanks again
For having me um obviously this this is a very important topic colon cancer and hopefully tonight you’ll be able to get a lot of great information on when you should get screened um you know and and hopefully uh we could prevent a lot more colon cancers thank
You all right um okay so thank you very much so uh I’m gonna reintroduce myself to some of you and reacquaint others with you again my name is Dr Keith boyin and I have over 30 years uh experience in um uh medicine I have completed residency in Pediatric and Internal
Medicine uh and for the last 30 years before I retired I practiced just Pediatrics so my take tonight is going to be as your moderator and also whatever aspects we can talk about that that affects other family members particularly in the uh the whole family unit but tonight we have a very special
Guest and someone who I think you will enjoy and we have a lot of information we can get from this um um speaker so without further Ado I’m going to go ahead and introduce him and then I’m gonna have him come on and give some open remarks as well our guest tonight
Is Dr ker I cross MD he was born in Wilmington Delaware in 1970 and is a distinguished gastroenterologist and healthc Care leader he earned his Bachelor of Science degree in biology from ampton University in 1992 my alma moern and his doctor of medicine degree from the University of Maryland school of medicine in
1997 Dr cross completed his medical residency in Internal Medicine and specialized in gastro urology at the University of mar Maryland Medical Center where he became the one of the first two African-Americans to complete such a training he’s board certified internal medicine and gastroenterology he embarked on a career dedicated to
Patient Care and Community advancement he joined Digestive Disease Association in Columbia and Baltimore Maryland in 2003 he became the first African-American partner in the practice very very significant his commitment to ex led to his election as president and chairman of the board in 2015 overseeing a team of 18 doctors and 103 employees
Wow in 2021 Dr cross facilitated the merg of digesticare and operational efficiency outside of his Prof Endeavors Dr cross is active member of the American gastrological sorry gastroenterological Association and a member of cap Alpha fraternity since 1993 committed to muring nurturing future Generations he serves as a mentor and supports educational initiatives Dr
Cross established the Charlie Lamont Howton scholarship at Hampton University and the cross scholarship in Baltimore enabling young individuals to pursue higher education particularly in the field of Medicine married to Dr KAC cross also a Hampton University uh alumni University School of Maryland alumni Dr cross is a proud father of three children his
Eldest daughter a graduate of Spelman College is currently pursuing mechanical engineering at USC he also has two sons age 18 and 16 both ass selling in high school Dr cross dedication to his family profession and Community exemplifies his commitment to excellent and service so without further Ado Dr
Cross give us some opening remarks please amen amen thank you for that introduction uh brother boyin it is uh can everybody hear me is that coming through fine excellent so I would like to uh start out by thanking God or whatever higher power we believe in that brings
In the best of us and uh thank uh the members of Omega scii of the founders uh Pastor love who uh is responsible for my family the cross family coming to America my grandfather was a Methodist minister in the West Indies and applied for a job in Ethiopia and in America and
Interviewed with Edgar uh Pastor edar love and they formed a bond and we came to America he had three sons that uh Pastor love told about Omega SciFi and they since joined uh the organization so I have a fond memory of the purple and gold as you might imagine going Kappa
Caused a major riff in the family for about a year to two my my father and I already speaking terms but you might imagine that might have been a big uh problem uh there and then lastly the members of the health and wellness committee here putting this together
This is an amazing uh forum and something that’s very very important because us as Leaders Kings mens of our our Villages and homes need to be healthy a a strong King is a needed King and and that’s why we’re coming together and then lastly uh Dr janil PHS him and
I met in medical school and and uh for those of you that know him very well he is such a great transparent strong man and was a year ahead of me but it was really a pleasure to meet a man that was like me understood the struggle and we
Faced that adversity and we only got better together uh there so today we will talk about colon cancer we’ll talk about uh things that uh affect us as a community and really just uh have a transparent conversation brotherto brother as many of you are often in
Rooms where you’re one or two uh black men or black people in the room it warms my heart to be in a room full of people that look like me and I can help uh everyone uh at this time uh can you share my slides all right there we go okay and so
I’ll just say next slide whenever we go to next the the title of the talk is the the 10 Health Commandments but the uh next Slide the the goal go back one is basically to share the common diseases that kill us certainly give you strong recommendations to lower uh your risk of
Death I really really want to motivate each and every one of you to maintain or to improve your health the healthier you are the stronger you are healthy is the new wealthy motivate all of us to get colon cancer screening certainly touch on prostate screening since it’s an issue in the African-American Community
Um my bullet point at the bottom of this slide is very very important I just uh could it would be a whole lecture uh I have to point out the pre-existing American condition of discrimination and poverty uh cannot be understated poverty from discrimination cannot be understated affecting outcomes in
Healthare because sometimes that gets missed when our counterparts talk about healthc care disparities black this white this and they do not touch on the fact that discrimination and discrimination resulted in poverty is the overwhelming 40 to 50% of the effects of these of these uh disparities in in in health carees next
Slide so uh yeah so limitations talking about race very important you guys are all smart gentlemen is race related to genetics is it social or is it cultural one of our American leaders Denzel washingon gave a nice lecture uh that I heard um saying that basically race in
America is more of a cultural thing it’s how you raised and the uh parts that come uh with that and less skin color um the data collection is sometimes limited for the data based on who and what they see if they think you’re white they may
Treat you like you’re white and they may record you as white they think you’re black they write you down as black as sometimes you get to identify yourself or you put down uh no answer on your data but these these informations or are called but there are limitations because
It’s either the person that’s filling out the form or the person that’s checking checking you in and very very important the last part lets you know that implicit bias um which is the bias that people um make assumptions by looking at you really often guides uh your health care treatment so any
Stereotypes that they have good or bad often uh determines how someone treats you and affects your medical outcomes and that cannot be understated next slide so not too busy slide but looking at the overall death rates this should not come as a surprise but the main
Purpose of this stud of this test is just to show that African-Americans have the highest death rate of uh All American subgroups the next one Caucasians next is Hispanics which Hispanics uh come with the asteris because they sometimes are underrepresented uh Anthony Garcia may be checked off as Caucasian and and
Really he is a Cuban American uh asian-americans have the lowest uh death rate in in America so African-Americans have the highest death rate per 100,000 and Asians have the lowest death rate next slide now this slide is is somewhat busy but it wants to point out and highlight
The top 10 caus of death because if we target them it it rolls into my uh Ten Commandments on how we lower our our death rate but the number one cause of death for people that look like us is going to be heart disease that’s cardiovascular death
27% cancer is 22% lung prostate colon breast being the big big four and then third are going to be accidents car accidents drowning uh we are well aware of the increase of accidental deaths with uh fenil for uh drug overdose which was increasing in the Suburban uh population and also an African-American
Population but became a big uh deal 2012 on and we heard heard a lot about it but as you see it’s number three on the list stroke 5% diabetes 5 5% kidney disease 3% liver disease 2% lung disease 2% homicide 2% HIV AIDS I just have those
Last two on there because these two are not on any other American subgroups uh top 10 homicide many lectures on that uh but however we know uh the pressures from discrimination and poverty uh leads uh to uh homicide and HIV AIDS is just more prevalent in African Americans
We’re seeing a a rise in heterosexual women uh typically often not knowing that they’re sleeping with bisexual men uh so that is on the rise and we have a lot of closeted sexual history therefore HIV AIDS is diagnosed down the road and we see how that plays in with colon
Cancer uh down the road but if you focus on the big three if you look at heart disease cancer and stroke you’re greater than 50% of the causes of death so if we impact or lower uh these things we can have a dramatic uh decrease in our causes causes of death next
Slide so weight BMI which is our size is a major factor in mortality it increases our risk of heart disease diabetes stroke liver disease um as many of you know African-Americans are the heaviest American subgroup asian-americans are the lightest subgroup Asians have the highest life expectancy African-Americans have the lowest life
Expectancy what goes into weight whether it’s genetics eating patterns uh stress all these things go into uh our weight and size but the smaller we are the more likely we are not to suffer a cardiovascular events so Asians uh lead America and Americans as overall are heavy but African-Americans are the
Heaviest subp next slide so this leads me into my uh Commandments and I will spend more time on prostate cancer and certainly on colon cancer but the first one D sh I smoke why is that the first one well clearly it lowers our risk of heart disease lung cancer COPD flu and stroke
Uh almost always there is a brother that will ask later on can I smoke my cigars and of course the answer is yes if it’s infrequent but some people smoke cigars on a regular basis and smoking on a regular basis is not healthy intermittently no smoking puffing to be
Cool not a big deal however smoking regularly inhaling those toxins are a risk factor so thou shall not smoke the next uh uh commandment is th sh control his weight pretty obvious from the previous slide why is that it lowers your risk heart disease stroke diabetes cancer outcomes are better the smaller
You all so these are all obvious reasons to be as small and as healthy as possible Thou shalt control his blood pressure and cholesterol lowers your risk of heart disease stroke kidney disease Thou shalt control his diabetes Well hemoglobin A1 C’s we like to regulate mainly because it lowers our
Risk of heart disease stroke kidney disease flu survival all of these are on the top top 10 causes of death and then last on this slide it says Thou shalt get a colonoscopy PSA for prostate scramming monography for your wife loved ones or sisters uh for breast cancer because it
Dramatically lowers your risk for colon cancer we’re going to touch on screen and for breast cancer within I mean for prostate cancer which in short although controversial I recommend most of you Brothers get PSAs and then certainly mography has done a fantastic job of lowering death rates for breast cancer
Even though breast cancer is very common one in eight women get breast cancer women are more likely to die from cring cancer than they are to die from breast cancer next slide my last five for my Commandments after I get the flu and covid vaccine not really debatable about
The facts the opinions on why we should or should not get it and the motivations behind them or hold another lecture but the regular flu kills about 50,000 Americans per year and we saw with the covid-19 pandemic it killed a million one Americans and 200,000 were African-Americans so that’s a four-fold
Increase just in the African-American population in comparison to what the common uh flu killed in the covid vaccine lowers our risk for that thou shall wear his seat belt kind of self-explanatory because of car accidents most of the time we die in car accidents within five miles of our house
Because that’s our road most traveled Thou shalt wear condoms if not monogamous that’s not for this group it’s typically more like kappas or non omegas that have problems with the Flesh and I know you guys all are well controlled with the Flesh and are monogamous but for those that are not it
Lowers your risk of HIV AIDS uh if you’re not monogamous to use uh condoms alcohol why is alcohol important well it lowers your risk of liver disease therosis and then the homicide risk is there um many of you may know or may not know that half of homicide victims
Either the shooter or the victim have have ingested alcohol at the time of uh the murder so uh making sure we control our alcohol because it helps our impulse helps uh what we say or not say uh can limit our death rate from homicide and then lastly which is very important the
Last uh commandment is managed stress manage Health Wellness very very important topic it’s getting talked about more and more but it lowers your weight and fat formation the higher stress the more cortisol you have in the body the more likely when you overeat you gain weight stress increases our
Blood pressure increases our heart disease and certainly stressful situations increase homicide risk and one important fact that I want to share with you is the most deadliest time of the week is Monday morning and what is that significance of about Monday morning it’s just that is the most
Stressful time for a man to wake up think about his entire week and sometimes that stresses too much it leads to a spasm in the heart and they have a heart attack next slide so with that I’ll just transition for the next uh five minutes to talk about prostate cancer and crolin cancer
And then we’ll uh handle any questions because I think the the true power is in the conversation uh piece of the fireside chat with aam mon Brothers but I do want to spend some time on prostate cancer it’s a leading cause of death however screening is controversial one
Main reason screen is controversial is prostate cancer death is not a major cause of death for the majority Americans it is a major cause of death for African-Americans we make up 12 to 15% of the population local prostate cancer has zero symptoms I repeat local prostate cancer has zero symptoms what
Are some symptoms are Advanced prostate cancer where it can be bone pain weight loss difficulty pin which can be from a larger prostate not necessarily unique to prostate cancer but these are symptoms of more advanced disease and then lastly focusing on what is the survival rate well if prostate cancer
Has made it to distal organs outside of the prostate the fiveyear chance of being alive is 30% but early detection only in the prostate sometimes you hear these gasing scores Etc but basically you would want to ask the doctor hey is it aggressive or not is it within the
Prostate those two questions let you know but if it’s within the prostate The Cure rate um is 100% next slide so how do we get screened everybody uh has heard about PSA prostate specific antigen you’re looking for levels below four you should get it yearly or every two years it’s
Considered a soft recommendation mainly because of the impact for everyone the impact for everyone makes these task force makes decisions but for the people on this call the impact is going to be larger than it is for everyone and I hope that makes sense so having screening does decrease your risk of
Death from prostate cancer the risk reduction overall is small and comparison to colon cancer that main reason is that colon cancer takes 20 years I mean prostate cancer uh can take up to 20 years to kill you if you are 60 years old diagnosed and you pass away at 80 well because your
Average lifespan is considered 75 for an African-American man there’s no years of life save there so that does not count of years of life saved so that makes for these calculations for the risk reduction to be small what are the risk factors for Prost prostate cancer were being African-American you have a higher
Risk for it if you have a family history of people diagnosed under the age of 65 you’re at a higher risk for uh getting uh prostate cancer so family history or if you’re African-American you’re considered higher risk so certainly considered getting screening the task force what they say discuss it with the
Patient screening versus no screening the main thing that they hang their hat on is about the risk reduction uh being small I have a li brother that was 45 d with colon cancer of course I’m 54 he’s still around he’s here we talked about it I recommended him getting screened he
Had the surgery he did fine my grandfather died from prostate cancer but I remember attending his doctor meeting when he was 72 saying that he didn’t need to have surgery because he was gonna die from something else they were incorrect he died at 92 from prostate cancer but it took a long time
And 90 year old funerals aren’t as sad as uh the 60 and 70 year old funerals which we’re trying to prevent with this discussion uh today next slide so my last couple slides are dealing with our major topic of colon cancer uh ironically if uh you read the
New York Times New York Times had an article about colon cancer today about how the death rates are increasing uh in young people and it’s uh anticipated to be the number one cancer cause of death in the future and we just had this uh discussion scheduled but colon cancer
Disparities well 153,000 people uh are diagnosed per year 52,000 deaths annually that’s down 55,000 preco um we anticipate colon cancer deaths to go up a little bit postco because covid uh screening rates were down but historically screening rates as they increase death rates have been going
Down and all of disparities that we see with colon cancer are mainly related to social economic status and the differences with access to screening early detection and treatment I just want to say that again social economic status is the main difference access to screening early detection and treatment
If it’s detected early outcomes are the same so my last point on this slide you’ll see when it’s diagnosed early colon cancer death rates are similar amongst all racial groups all racial groups is the same if you catch it early but catching it late is our biggest problem as African-American men we
Either don’t get screamed or we come in uh with symptoms and if we have symptoms The Cure rate drops down about 50 to 60% from the high uh rate of of 90% but it’s very very important for us to know because we get a a bad thing of what
Does it mean to be African-American I I’m G die from this I’m gon die from that you do not necessarily have to die from colon cancer if you get screen and those that have have access uh to uh Health Care should be screened next slide so um these facts are all coming
Out we are heard about them we hear them they’re true African-Americans are 20% more likely to be diagnosed with colon cancer um and we’re 40% more likely to die from colon cancer and main reason what I mentioned earlier we present later in a single black man is my
Personal most difficult uh patient to get screened there’s my least likely group to be screened a single black man uh often has other barriers as it relates to not coming to the doctor and married men go their wives nag them often or you Scope their wife and then
They bring their uh the husband comes in and says hey it’s not so bad I’ll I’ll get screamed so married black men live longer than single men that’s that’s that’s a word or or a preacher to somebody uh on this uh call married black men live longer than than single
Black men and I joke at work that it’s just because their wives make them go to the doctor and get well visits or screening visits and single black men go to the doctor when they feel bad and if you go to the doctor only when you feel
Bad your likely hood of survival is going to go down because we need to find stuff early with those screening tests and why don’t black men go to the doctor well often black men don’t have good encounters with the health care system at an early age we get turned off by the
Health Care System but also After High School we’re told and instructed to go to the clinic when you don’t feel well when you’re in college if you have a cold you have a flu you’re not feeling well you break your arm you go to the
Doctor so if there’s a problem you go to the doctor and when you compare that to our female counterparts who have to get G in visits they have to have well well visits that they find a doctor that they don’t like they just ask their girlfriend they find another doctor they
Have to find a physician that they like and work with so they’re more likely to stay in the systems in their 20s and 30s so once they turn 40 and they’re told go get a mammogram go get a colon offy get this blood work done they go off and get
It we have not been in the Health Care system and the system wasn’t nice to us 10 years 20 years we go to the doctor once and they say do this this this that and we often Rebel so that’s one of the uh factors and it costs money to go to
The doctor as well so these are factors that uh lead to us decreasing our chances of getting screening increasing our chance of dying and I always point out to uh brothers that although we hate the Health Care System we are not punishing the Health Care system by not
Going because there is no reward with death actually the devil wins when a man or a black king is sick because often a black man covers a woman covers one to two children covers relatives so the devil or the system gets a lot of bang for his buck when a black man becomes
Sick and or dies next slide what are the risk factors for colon cancer very very important topic here because it’s less about genetics which is the last thing family history does contribute but the vast majority of my patients and in uh um American Healthcare are the first person in their
Family to get colon cancer the leading cause of colon cancer is the environment our air quality is very poor it’s getting worse uh one day we’ll all be on electronic electric cars but until then First World countries uh lead the world in uh colon cancer and First World
Countries like our country with bad eating habits uh have a very very high rate of colon cancer so what should your diet be well in a perfect situation you’d be a vegetarian you’d eat fruits and vegetables period meats are inflammatory and it’s the inflammation the drugs the toxins that are in the
Foods you eat that end up mutating or causing cells that have cancer cells or point mutations in them to mutate and that’s how your pops become cancer red meat being the highest inflammatory uh food so if you’re ever had a vegetarian that has not had any meat for years and you accidentally feed
Them meat if you’ve seen that they become deinitely ill like they have the flu because their immune system is revved up and it’s got to fight a battle that it’s just not in shape to eat people that eat hamburgers and stuff all the time they eat red meat they don’t
Really get sick because your immune system is in there fighting dayto day fighting these meats but meats are inflammatory red meat chicken and then fish certainly is your least inflammatory uh meat of choice my third point on this slide is it’s pretty much is significant in that age is a risk
Factor but now we’re seeing the younger you are the riskier it is we chagar bosan the Black Panthers many of you know he was in his 30s when he was diagnosed he had pain so you have a 50% chance of beating it his uh chance
Landed on tails and in five years he had passed away he did most of those movies with stage three and stage four colon cancer he’s an amazing uh man and actor when he did the Black Panther here he knew he had colon cancer but he was in
His 30s when he was diagnosed he was a vegetarian he was in much better shaped than I was and most of us were very unlucky but colon cancer is on the rise for people born in the 90s and it’s a two-fold increase in comparison to older
Folks that were born in the 50s Main related to air quality for old people is because they live near a factory or they worked in a mine for us it’s just because we breathe this bad air all the time for 20 30 years get and get colon cancer next
Slide what are signs of colon cancer very similar prostate cancer early colon cancer causes zero symptoms I’m unable to look at a patient and know who has early colon cancer I can tell people that if they have advanced disease they don’t look or feel well but it’s kind of too late then so
All cancers come from Pops early cancer is about a one or two inch little lesion that’s kind of growing on the side of the colon they are no nerve endings on the inside of the colon so you don’t feel it you don’t feel PPS there are no
Symptoms so when people say I don’t have cancer I feel great they’re just strictly lying and hoping and praying that they don’t have it what some symptoms what do I see when people have it I’ve been doing colon cancer screening now for 20 years um abdominal
Pain is the most common symptom they eat in about an hour after eating sometimes they get pain as the food is going through allion sometimes rectal bleeding uh if the lesion is towards the bottom part of the colon bleeds like a hemorrhoid it’s not amount of bleeding
So I will share that with you if you see a lot of blood it’s usually not from colon cancer that scares people but colon cancer likes to bleed like little teaspoons off and on a patient will come in and say Doc I’ve been noticing some blood off and on and just here lately
It’s two or three times a week I need to get that checked out and that’s can be from a cancer down at the bottom part bow habits can get diarrhea constipation can lose weight if the tumor is getting bigger we do not like to weight for weight loss because that typically is
Going to be a stage three out of four or stage four cancer and Stage for colon cancer has a 15% cure rate so my last slide there last point on this slide says distant disease when you hear about somebody he they have cancer spread to the liver 15% chance of being alive in
Five years that’s a big deal if you’re 60 years old and you have a 15% chance of being alive in in uh five years local disease if we find it right in the colon 90% chance of being alive in five years and all of us on this call we have a 99
Point something chance of being alive because something can happen but we like those 90 plus odds if it has to do with cancer and diseases next slide so colon cancer screening what are our options and these are my last two slides well colon oscopy is the gold
Standard it’s the only test that can detect and remove pups um when you do have screening and this is very important for you to share with your friends and colleagues it decreases your risk of colon cancer by 90% And your risk of death 99% it’s a very very very big bang for
Your buck when people talk about I don’t want to do the prep I don’t want to have anything stuck in my butt dock I don’t want anesthesia I say listen it’s better to meet me in outpatient office if you meet me at the hospital you’re going to be
Pooping out of a bag for three months before you get reconnected you’re going to have to take the prep anyway one in 20 men get colon cancer there’s no real excuse you can give me and I often tell people the adversity and the fights you have with racism and discrimination is
Nothing in comparison when you need to drink liquids and take a bowel prep to keep uh strong and healthy for your h family you’re a king and you need to be healthy the next screening tool stool DNA is called colard it’s a trade name it’s it’s it’s it’s a pretty good test
It it detects cancer at 92% it misses 8% of cancers colon oy misses 1% so that’s why colonoscopy is the gold standard but colard is noninvasive you just poop in a cup I you know for you come see me I fill out your address they ship it there
You FedEx it back and get the results if it’s positive you get a colonoscopy if it’s negative you repeat it every three years but it’s not a bad test the scores a 92 which is an a it’s just not as good as a colonoscopy so colonoscopy detects
Pops detects early cancer at a rate of 99% the caveat and the problem we’re having which is why we’re having this discussion is that 60% of Americans with insurance that should be screened or not or screened that means 40% are not African-American numbers are lower anywhere between 40% to 50% of African-Americans are
Getting screened and we already know well visits or the screening is the way way to go if you come in to us sick and it’s from colon cancer C rates 50 to 60% if you come in healthy if you have colon cancer cure rates 90% or better next
Slide so two big points when do we get screen well screening starts at age 45 it’s 10 years uh before your family member so if you had a family member that was diagnosed at age 50 you should start at 40 if you have family member started at 45 you
Start at 35 and screening is every 10 years if it’s negative and cola guard is every three years if it’s negative that makes sense so colonoscopy a little bit longer screening interval as long as you don’t have any symptoms in between uh as every 10 years col guard is every three years
Um if it’s negative if it’s positive certainly that triggers a a colonoscopy next slide so we went over the Commandments no smoking control your weight blood pressure and cholesterol diabetes these are all things that lower your risk for heart disease we hit pretty hard on colonoscopy I think you understand why I
Support getting a PSA there are Arguments for population screening to not get a PSA uh done because of how long it takes people to pass away from prostate cancer but most of us know somebody that got prostate cancer Andor died from it mammograms speak for the self the the the facts are not
Negotiable one in eight women get breast cancer the pink ribbons everywhere women are getting screened at at 80% rates women are more likely to die from colon cancer than breast cancer next slide we talked about getting the flu vaccine we talked about wearing your seat belt wearing condoms limitting
Alcohol managing stress is very very important um getting counseling when needed black men in particular when we get stressed we withdraw so I will share that if you’re friends that uh if they’re depressed they’re not going to be texting you back at the frequency that you’re used to that’s a red flag
They’re not going to want to come out at the frequency uh that they used to men especially black men we go in cave and unfortunately sometimes we go so far in the cave we don’t come back out it’s our brothers Keepers it’s our job as brothers when we notice people in the
Cave if we’re healthy and well enough to do it we need to go in the cave and bring them out we save lives that way uh by helping with mental health and and stress and that’s just the main thing there is that you have to be willing to
Go in the cave if you use the Mantra I’ll wait till he reaches out for me I text him a couple times he them respond that’s on him you’re really not your brother’s keeper you have to be willing to go to the cave you have to be willing
To stop by your brother’s house and or call and or reach out to their loved ones to get in touch to get in touch with them that is distress management when our brothers are stressed we withdraw when women are stressed they talk they chat they get help their
Suicide rates are nowhere near our rates black men suicide rates up 200 100 fold past 10 years a lot of reasons for that social media phones we get constantly reminded of what what what we’re not doing we see on social media what our friends have and what we’re not doing it
Pushes us deep in the cave so I just spend some time on that because I talked about colon cancer prostate cancer but suicide is making a rise for African Americans it hasn’t made the top 10 but it was never ever on the top 10 in the history of United States and suicide may
Make the top 10 for for black men in the next two years so I just wanted to make that point next slide so last slide hope you’re all informed on comma diseases are our enemies I think um I cannot again understate discrimination uh causes stress it causes poverty it causes decrease being
Able to go to the doctor increased risk of of not being able to eat well increased risk of not living in good neighborhoods all of these things contribute uh uh to bad outcome so when we say hey African-Americans have a higher death rate from this higher death
Rate from that you can’t say those things without saying that there’s a reason there’s a system in place that that that that causes those things and it’s discrimination and discriminate and poverty from discrimination rich black men do well rich black men don’t live as long as rich white men because
Discrimination still is involved but rich black men do live longer than poor uh black men so and that has been studied so I hope that overall You’re motivated to continue your health Journey some of you if you hadn’t gotten a colonoscopy may get one your PSA
Working on your health and your Tempo at all times and I appreciate your time uh next slide so I want to thank all of you for your time and attention I kind of hit you kind of hard uh but I come to you as in a loving spot as a brother and all
Part of a village but the stronger you are the more uh better you are to take care of your family as a king thank you alrighty thank you so much doc Dr cross uh folks we’ve had a wealth of information put out there tonight I mean
A wealth of information uh from Dr cross but we’re Canna continue the conversation now we want to talk a little bit more about uh colon cancer as it is now and he mentioned a word that we we we talked about so much on these uh webinars and that’s disparities I
Think one one thing that we want to talk about and talk about disparities are what are the disparities between black women and black men in accessing the Health Care system because we know that black guys are gonna say I ain’t going no doctor you know whereas black women
As soon as they come out of high school or whatever they’re GNA go so I anybody can take this question you know what are the disparities that we see between black women and black men particularly when it comes to colon cancer and of course women don’t have prostate but
They take care of themselves better when they do their mammograms and things we as black men do in our PSAs and things like that so anybody can take that question just just I’m just throwing it out there yeah well yeah let Dr Isabel touch on that
Okay so uh regarding Primary Care in the office um this disparity of um females women they’re more open to going for their colonoscopy screening um where I I see more per se men or black men they’re very hesitant they say I feel fine uh some say if it’s not broken don’t fix
It uh so try to convince them to get the uh the screening uh and unfortunately sometimes there’s a delay in uh in where the cancer if they have cancer until they get symptoms a lot of times you don’t have any symptoms at all so that’s uh the myth of I’m
Healthy if I don’t have any symptoms but then they start getting some symptoms they lose weight or they notice blood or that just appetite has changed then they may considered a go some patients black they ask well have you had a colonoscopy I told them yes and um I
Explained it um it’s pretty much you know the prep uh you’re you’re a friend with the toilet that’s your best friend um I use the word like you’re you’re once you bow like you’re uh peeing through your rectum once but you have to keep your well self well
Hydrated so you don’t get dehydrated um because you know it can throw your electrolytes off like if you have multiple other medical problems uh like diabetes hypertension so one thing medical wise you have to be careful and take care of yourself um I also do you know HIV
Primary care and also uh if colon cancers any ill immune compromised illness can be is more aggressive um but um another example um I had four brothers uh I it’s hard to tell them to even they still some of them haven’t gone to a colonos my father he didn’t go until he was
70 um at I got my after I got my uh colonoscopy then he decided to go they found you know uh on the right side of colon a a large uh Mass we thought it with Cancers he he had to have surgery was so large they
Had to remove it but you know he took uh years to go even though you know we’re involved in in the health care um to PR prevent uh to present to get your own family you know a black African man to go it’s it’s not always easy but it can
Save your life because unfortunately once it if you have it gets to the liver the percentage goes down so if you wait because colon cancer could if it’s diagnosed early it be cable it’s when it gets to Stage four3 or it goes to the liver where the prognosis is just very
Poor for women um you know life is often based on relationships and for women they have that GYN and then they have a baby that OB relationship that is a very good uh relationship often and then they just get that recommendation go get a colonoscopy it’s like their sister
Telling them to go get it they go get it and Men especially black men just don’t often have that relationship and I often ask my patients your relationship with your primary care doctor do you rate it as as average or great and you’d be shocked how many times the the the
Patients rate their relationship with their primary care doctor as average when it should be great you’re paying them you should want a great relationship with your primary care doctor and if it’s not great work on getting it because people that have great relation with their primary care doctor have better
Outcomes so Dr for you Primary Care let’s talk about you know what your your your take on that particularly from the aspect that most guys say I don’t trust I don’t trust the system I don’t know if what you’re telling me is right you know should I believe you you know I don’t
Want to be a guinea pig that’s one word I hear all the time I don’t want to be a guinea pig so what’s your take on that Dr for yeah but I think what Dr cross said is the relationship that you have with your patients you know a lot of patients even
Come back to their primary care and say even when they go to the specialist and say Doc what do you think you know if they trust you right so that’s about talking to them building relationships and that’s when you can uh you can advise them what they should do and a
Lot of times they will but we know a lot of lot of men we don’t come to the doctors unless we have we see blood or we’re in pain right that’s the time that we want to run to the doctors but we have to encourage everybody to come to
Their phys the primary care or their other Physicians uh you know for for the screenings because that’s when we’re going to catch something early right so that’s definitely so important to to stress that you have to go to your primary care doctor uh uh early on for
Your screenings the other thing is as men we need to make our circle of men accountable right everybody has two or three people family members that hey did you get your colonoscopy did you get your your prostate blood test are you checking your blood pressure you know so
You want to make sure that you’re talking because sometimes when we get in our groups you know yeah we may talk about the game we’re going to talk about other things but sometimes we have to bring up the fact that hey how’s your health man did you go get your colonos
Yet and then when we put that peer pressure on people that’s when they respond so as far as even in even in our frat the chapters right we know that hey this if you look at each chapter there’s there’s disease going on just like it is
You know in ask your patience but we have to keep BRS accountable too right so um you know as men we just need to make sure everybody’s accountable and also what’s important is to talk about your family history you know what came up not only prostate cancer colon cancer
And all other diseases we have to talk to our family because if we don’t talk to our family we don’t know that someone had colon cancer we won’t know that we should be screened earlier right so I think that’s that’s so important so what about the folks that
Say uh well okay all right I know I need to get screened I know I need to do this but you know I as Dr cross mentioned in his presentation I don’t want to have that thing put up my butt you know how do you convince somebody that you know
If they’re the right age group particular those ones the younger age group and they high risk to go ahead and get the colas and they just want to opt for man just give me the just give me the poop in the cup test and I’ll be
Done with it let’s talk about that a little bit the uh the main thing that in my 20 years that has worked on people one since colard is coming out pooping in the cup it’s hard for someone to make an excuse that they can’t do the screening
By doing the stool sample so number one but the main thing is getting you have to speak people’s currency and their currency is usually what they love it’s rare that you find a person that just loves themselves and cares about nothing else so it’s often a a goal if they have
A child you know you need to live another 10 years to see them finish High School see them finish college get people to kind of forward think and what colon cancer does it ends your life in five years so once you get people projecting out 10 years more those
Things are not there’s a one in 20 chance that that doesn’t happen for you if you don’t get screened and typically it’s the family me there are a lot of men that aren’t afraid of them dying individually it’s more so what happens when they’re going to the people that
Depend on them that often softens their stance and they do that I’ve seen women tell husbands Hey listen if you love me you’ll get it done and that’s the only reason they do it because they do love X Y and Z they want to see their granddaughter get married or whatever
You know hey if she hasn’t met a man then her chances of getting married is still two or three years out and you need to get a colonoscopy so it’s mainly Forward Thinking and then once people are living past today and they’re thinking 5 years out colon cancer kills
You in five years uh that’s the main thing that often works so is there any is there any reason or any any any type of person that should not get a non colonoscopy scening test are there any individuals out there what what should rely mostly on the colonos and
Not on the cola guard per se any any any people out there we they need to know the difference between when to get the colon when to get the col col guard when not to get the col uh colard great great question so high-risk people you have a history of Pops you
Have multiple family members or one is enough but you you know you have two or three family members that have had colon cancer you’ve had precancer pops yourself you’re having symptoms these are high-risk things for colon cancer colig guard is not the test for you
Colard is a test for a low risk and for screening I feel good I have no symptoms I don’t think I have anything going on let me get checked out but if you’re highrisk you want to get the test that doesn’t miss because you’re highrisk so
I say why would you do something that may miss when you’re highrisk for it so we wear seat belts every day and we’re low risk for getting in a car accident but if we get in a car accident it’s more likely to be fatal if we don’t have
Our seat belt so that’s why we wear our seat bels all the time even though we’re lowrisk but if we get into an accident we more likely to die if we don’t get it so if you have colon cancer you’re more likely to die if you wait for symptoms
And right now the person in front of me has no symptoms now is the time to get screened now it’s not too late if you meet me with weight loss and 10 pounds and asking for miracles the only person that does Miracles is the man upstairs
Right I can only help you with my physical hands and I say God probably made you make the appointment but now you got to do your part and follow through to how do we encourage go ahead go ahead Dr I’m sorry to add to the color guard
Uh uh like Dr cross said it it misses like about eight% of a false negative but then there’s a high percentage of false positive too and I’ve seen often some PE people patients believe oh I I have cancer I have cancer you need the gold standard colonoscopy um because it also fects a
Mental issue uh um when patient get the color guard because they’re thinking the worst um so that’s another thing you have to I tell them that there’s a chance that if it you could get a positive but you have to get the uh colonos which is the ghost standard but
There’s a mental point when anybody hears about cancer they think automatically they have cancer that’s the problem guard also right so how do we how do we tell our younger brothers in our organizations you know our brothers you know Dr cross talked about you know colosi starting out at 45 how
Do we convince our younger you know brothers and uh and family members for that matter uh that they need to start screening from colon cancer even if they don’t have a family history you know how what you know because you said uh people in the 90s are higher risk for
Developing colon cancer because our environment has changed from those people that are born in the 50s so how do we convince these young people that we you know you really need to think about first of all you should go see your primary care position on a regular
Basis and B you need to think about these things you be screen for so what are some pointers what are some tips for you know one of our one of our brothers in the chat said you know this is a conversation we need to have all the
Time what can we include in that conversation get these younger brothers that think they’re Invincible that they need to get screen the main talk that I have with people is I say in our from 15 to 25 we talk to our young men about we give them
The talk and when we talk about the talk is mainly about me with law enforcement often you uh uh Brothers will talk to other brothers about deescalation with other brothers a lot of people have guns and stuff because homicide and car accidents and drug overdose are the
Number one causes a death from 15 to 25 but once you cross into 25 and 30 your number one cause of death is starting to creep into cancer so we need to have the cancer talk 30 and up and so that’s what’s lacking in our community right
Now we do a very very good job talking about white man discrimination white cops shooting us black cops at homies shooting us getting robbed stealing we we we have that conversation weekly uh with Y and I’m the father of of three boys so you know we have that
Conversation and my son had his first traffic stop and it went fine but that’s a lot of anxiety but what happens is you have to have the cancer talk and be persistent with the cancer talk as Dr Ford said we have to be persistent and diligent with the cancer talk 35 and up
And peer pressure you go play golf you hang out you say man listen I’m G stop rocking with you until you get that test because you know I need you around and the fact you being irresponsible and you’re not the person who I thought you were you know because if you’re not
Taking care of yourself like that and this a test I’m not quite sure I need to be rocking with you right now and typically your friends and my buddies they go get the test done they get tired of hearing my mouth but I just exclude you from my golf out in or whatever
You’re not getting invited until you get checked out if it’s your blood pressure because listen I’m not trying to go visit you in the hospital with this stroke that’s preventable that’s right right so so it’s is having to talk from discrimination fighting shooting and stuff maintaining that same level
Intensity 35 and up but switching it to cancer health and blood pressure so you’re you’re preparing them because every time they come in you know hey at 45 is colon cancer we’re g to start getting your PSA at 40 we’re going to make sure we get
Your blood so they know they know the routine every single time that they come in that okay I know doc already told me next year is my year they already had that anticipation of knowing what you’re gonna tell them right so so I agree 100% with Dr cross says we got to start
Preparing them early that this is what you’re going to have when we move forward 100% um routine physical exams you bring it up also a lot of churches now they have like with hope Ministry where you do well you do five minutes you may mention certain topics uh for
Example my church this month we briefly talk about colon uh cancer screening and those repetitive repetitive and and you you touch one or two people um um to change your mind and hopefully it can save a life wow well Brothers you know this is
As always we have we have a lot more we can talk about but the time has run out on us so I want to uh just take this opportunity to thank Dr cross for coming on tonight giving us a wealth of information I’d like to take these last
Few minutes if each of you would take about 30 seconds just give a a a brief uh take home point for our pie and people and then we’re gonna get on out here so I’ll go ahead and start with you uh Dr Ford yes uh like to thank Dr cross also a wealth
Of information um I think it’s so important as I mentioned before to make sure that you’re talking to your family to make sure you know their history to also make sure that you’re visiting your primary care doctors so that they can uh get you the proper screenings at the right time thank
You thank you Dr Isabelle regarding uh col cancer oh yeah regarding colon cancer screening uh risk factors if you smoke if you drink uh if you have diabetes if you obesity uh High uh meat diet processed foods you lack of uh good ve vegetables and fruit
In your diet all that can increase your chance of colon cancer know your family history see a doctor routinely uh just don’t only think about yourself uh because if there’s a delay you can take years off your life you may not see your child grow up you may not
See your grandkids you may not see someone graduate from college so you’re think of as insurance you’re trying to uh save your life by getting the detection to decrease your chances of getting stage four thank you Dr cross you got about 30 seconds and then we need to take it on out yeah
Just get come off you there you go okay just uh Piggy bakon on what the doctor said knowing the family but opening your mouth being your brother’s keeper uh being around for the loved ones that need you you are a someone of importance knowing the king status that you are
That you need to be healthy going to the doctor doing the well visits that’s the main thing doing well visits when you’re healthy and going seeing people because when you get sick the whole family gets sick and that’s what what we have to understand that once you are no longer
Well you cannot earn money and many of us are not independently wealthy we need to be healthy so we continue to be wealthy or can earn earn money and projecting out five to 10 years is what’s needed and thank you for your time every all right thank you so much
And folks this concludes our webinar for tonight we want to thank uh all of our uh brothers who spoke tonight and particularly Our Guest Dr cross tonight for his wealth of information we also like to thank our District representative brother del rico gailes for allowing us to have this platform
And of course last but not least we’d like to thank brother Pierce for because without him we wouldn’t have this platform to do this so pay attention to what the brother said tonight get your screenings done don’t be afraid to go and see your primary care and discuss
What’s wrong with you and by all means please donate BR until next time be safe and have a happy Holy Week and season and
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