“I never want to characterize cancer as a gift, I don’t think I need to endure treatments and side effects the rest of my life just to be a better person. But I’d like to believe that I have Stage IV metastatic breast cancer for a reason: to speak out about it, to educate people, to fill in the missing gaps in the breast cancer awareness messages, to dispel the ‘guilt’ myth, that this cancer is my own fault, that I failed to eat right, think positively, live well.”
—Ginny Knackmuhs (1950-2016), MBCN’s treasurer and webmaster
Education is a key component of MBCN’s mission. We held our first conference at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 2006. Subsequent conferences have been held at M.D. Anderson, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Indiana University’s Simon Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern Medical Center and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. We speak at many regional conferences, too. In addition to our online materials, we offer patient brochures in English and Spanish. We frequently partner with other advocacy groups to present webinars detailing the latest treatment news and other issues. We are proud to be a co-founder of the Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance–we, along with other patient advocates, have a seat at the table!
