Checkup

Making Rounds

Mayo Clinic Health Forum

The Mayo Clinic Health Forum offers educational seminars that provide medical information to our community. Mayo Clinic physicians share their expertise on a variety of health-related topics, and they are available after their presentations to answer questions one-on-one. The seminars are free, open to the public and most are held in Kinne Auditorium on the clinic campus. Please call (904) 953-0770 or visit our Web site for dates and times of upcoming forums.

Simple Success Series

Diabetes program: This comprehensive outpatient program teaches diabetics how to manage their disease. Health-care professionals teach a series of four classes totaling 10 hours in a supportive, small group environment. Insurance companies may provide coverage.

Weight control program: A registered dietitian and exercise physiologist teach this 12-week, comprehensive outpatient program. Emphasis is placed on lifestyle, exercise, attitudes and relationships and their effect on one's health.

Classes for both programs are held at the St. Luke's Hospital campus. For class dates, times and other information, please call (904) 296-3733.

Nutrition Cancer Class

This nutrition class is designed for patients currently undergoing cancer treatment or those who have completed their treatment. Classes are held the first and third Tuesday of each month from 11 a.m. to noon in Room 600E-10 of the Davis Building on the Mayo Clinic campus. For more information, call (904) 296-3733.

Researchers Block Cancer-Promoting Signals In Lung Cancer

Alan Fields, Ph.D.

Cancer researchers at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville used a therapeutic gold compound to block cancer-promoting signals between key proteins involved in the development of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the No. 1 cause of cancer deaths in the United States. If further research validates the Mayo findings, the novel strategy they devised could lead to promising new drug therapies that inhibit NSCLC — a significant advance for a widespread and common disease that typically does not respond well to existing therapies. The gold compound successfully halted the growth of human NSCLC cells in culture and NSCLC tumors in mice. NSCLC, one of two major forms of lung cancer, accounts for an estimated 80 percent of all lung cancers. Dr. Alan Fields, Ph.D., the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center researcher who lead the teams, says this report is a key first step toward identifying a new therapy for non-small cell lung cancer.

Hospice Coming to Campus

Community Hospice of Northeast Florida will break ground this summer on a $9 million, 23,000-square-foot, 16-bed inpatient facility to be built on the Mayo Clinic campus. The facility will provide care to terminally ill patients, grief counseling, family gathering areas and hospice care provider space. Mayo Clinic is leasing the land to Community Hospice on a long-term basis, says Harold Huber, a Mayo Clinic administrator. "This effort is consistent with Mayo Clinic's ongoing commitment to the community by hosting a facility to serve the area's growing population," says Huber. "It's also a natural extension of the patient-centered working relationship that has developed over the years between us."

Mayo and Community Hospice have shared care of patients since shortly after Mayo's arrival in Jacksonville in 1986. Having a hospice care facility located on the Mayo campus also complements the recent Comprehensive Cancer Center designation Mayo received by the National Cancer Institute, Huber says. The hospice is scheduled to open in mid-2007.