(March 13, 2001) I was recently challenged to get this column up and going again, and so it seems that there is an interest in some of these ramblings after all. Although, I would really like to encourage others with a desire to write, to submit original articles to me, at jhardman@charter.net and you can share them with your colleagues online.

You may notice some improvements to the site such as pictures, and graphics. The entire Board of Directors and other hard working MAPA volunteers, all take pride in earning the AAPA Award of Excellence two years in a row. First in 1999 in the medium size chapter category, and then in 2000 in the large chapter category. Yes, we are now considered a large chapter with over 400 members!

There is a call for help from the Augsburg PA Program for preceptors for the final elective for the current senior class. If you are interested please contact Terry Lewis at, lewist@augsburg.edu. This would require a commitment from June 1, through August 10^th.

The MAPA Spring CME this year will mark the beginning of our 25^th Anniversary Celebration. There is a special night planned for April 20^th. There will be a Student Scholarship Silent Auction Fund Raiser, a Student Challenge Bowl, and a huge party with all Minnesota PA’s invited! Plan you schedule now and be sure to register early for this CME. Go to http://mnmed.org/mapa/CME registration.html to register online.

Changes to the Minnesota Medical Society Web Site can now be seen at www.mmaonline.net. You can still reach the site through the old address www.mnmed.org; however, you may wish to change your bookmarks or favorites list, to include the new address. Here you can find up-to-date links to Minnesota legislative issues that are important to PA’s and our supervising physicians. The Advocacy News section may be of interest to you, with many explanations and links to discussions about Patient Protection Legislation, Preventing Medical Errors, and the Sick Tax, to name just a few.

Another site of interest is the MMWR Home page, at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/mmwr.html. This page contains a link to subscribe to MMWR, http://www.cdc.gov/subscribe.html, which will allow you to receive updates via email. The latest update, http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5009a1.htm was interesting to me, because it reminded me, that March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.

At the bottom of the previous article is a link to the Center for Disease Control patient education page for cancer screening, http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/screenforlife. Here there are links to much information on Colon Cancer. Click on Colorectal Cancer information, http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/screenforlife/info.htm and read through a summary list. Then go to the link at the bottom of that article, to see the Harvard Center for Cancer Prevention Interactive Cancer Risk Screening Tool, http://www.yourcancerrisk.harvard.edu/. This is very informative and personally rates your relative risk for a number of different cancers that you can click on. I choose colon cancer and went through the risk assessment, and actually learned more from this because of the personal nature of the tool and the simple but thorough explanations for the different risk factors and risk reducing behaviors.

The above references could keep you busy for some time if you choose to explore all the various types of cancer listed. However, my intention is to try to provide you with a few ways to be better informed by using the resources of the Internet, as you try to stay ahead with information for you, your family and your patients.

If you enjoy reading these short articles, or if you have some interesting areas of the Internet that you have explored on your own, and would like to share those experiences with your colleagues, then write to me at jhardman@charter.net.

To contact the author regarding this page, contact John Hardman, PA-C