“September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month”

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. Talk to your doctor about prostate cancer screening.

Cancer is a disease in which abnormal cells in the body grow out of control. When cancer starts in the prostate, it is called prostate cancer. The prostate is a walnut-sized organ located just below the bladder and in front of the rectum in men. It produces fluid that makes up a part of semen.

Not counting some forms of skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in American men, and second only to lung cancer in the number of cancer deaths. Every year, more than 200,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer, and more than 25,000 men die from it. CDC provides men, doctors, and policymakers with the latest information about prostate cancer.

Symptoms

Different people have different symptoms for prostate cancer. Some men do not have symptoms at all. Some symptoms of prostate cancer are—

• Difficulty in starting urination.
• Weak or interrupted flow of urine.
• Frequent urination, especially at night.
• Difficulty in emptying the bladder completely.
• Pain or burning during urination.
• Blood in the urine or semen.
• Pain in the back, hips, or pelvis that doesn’t go away.
• Painful ejaculation.

If you have any symptoms that worry you, be sure to see your doctor right away. These symptoms may be caused by conditions other than prostate cancer.

 Risk Factors

There is no way to know for sure if you will get prostate cancer. Men have a greater chance of getting prostate cancer if they are 50 years old or older, are African-American, or have a father, brother, or son who has had prostate cancer.

Screening for Prostate Cancer

Not all medical experts agree that screening for prostate cancer will save lives. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends against prostate-specific antigent (PSA)-based screening for men that do not have symptoms. The potential benefit of prostate cancer screening is early detection of cancer, which may make treatment more effective. Potential risks include false positive test results (the test says you have cancer when you do not), treatment of prostate cancers that may never affect your health, and mild to serious side effects from treatment of prostate cancer.

Most organizations recommend that men discuss with their doctors the benefits and risks of prostate cancer screening. CDC continues to support informed decision making, which encourages men to talk with their doctors to learn the nature and risk of prostate cancer, understand the benefits and risks of the screening tests, and make decisions consistent with their preferences and values.

Tests that are commonly used to screen for prostate cancer are—

• Digital rectal exam (DRE): A doctor, nurse, or other health care professional places a gloved finger into the rectum to feel the size, shape, and hardness of the prostate gland.
• Prostate specific antigen test (PSA): PSA is a substance made by the prostate. The PSA test measures the level of PSA in the blood, which may be higher in men who have prostate cancer. However, other conditions such as an enlarged prostate, prostate infections, and certain medical procedures also may increase PSA levels.

With only eight percent of black male eighth graders enrolled in schools in urban areas scoring “proficient” on reading test, 

and only 10 percent scoring “proficient” in math, intervention programs usually focus on boosting black male middle and high school results and improving high school graduation rates. However, a solution to the black male education crisis offered at a recent symposium held by the Education Testing Service and the Children’s Defense Fund suggests a different approach: Reaching young black males when they’re much younger—between pre-K and third grade.

Why start interventions early? Statistically, black children are more likely to grow up in poverty , which means from the time they’re born, they’re less likely to have access to health care and aren’t placed in high quality child care settings. Although black girls are affected by these disparities, because of a combination of race, gender, and poverty, by the time black boys are two, according to a federal Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, they’re already behind on cognitive tests. That means on the first day of kindergarten, black boys are likely to be academically behind both black girls and their white peers.

Since these boys need catching up from day one, scholars attending the symposium say school districts should place their best teachers in the lower elementary grades. Schools don’t always do this because of a mentality that it doesn’t take real skill to teach an early elementary or preschool curriculum—how hard can it be to teach the alphabet or the phonetic sounds of the letters, right? Plus it’s easy to think that if kids miss something in pre-K or kindergarten, there’s always next year to catch up. But with the most effective teachers in those grades, kids should be able to get on track academically earlier.

While the idea of reaching black boys at a younger age makes sense, some of the suggestions for how schools can tweak early grade intervention could go completely wrong if not thoughtfully implemented. Oscar A. Barbarin III, a psychology professor at Tulane University, says schools should back off the academics in kindergarten and first grade and instead focus on teaching black boys social and emotional skills, and address their more holistic needs. Montclair State University educational psychology professor Jamaal S. Matthews told Education Week he agrees with Barbarin and shared that according to his research on behavioral self regulation in black kindergarteners “boys who lack self-regulation skills may be viewed by teachers as aggressive.”

While making schooling more holistic is needed, backing off the academics in early elementary school isn’t exactly going to help black boys who are behind in reading and math get on grade level. And, what Matthews isn’t saying, or at least, isn’t saying to Education Week, is that because of racism, a teaching population that’s predominantly white and female is socialized to see a black male as aggressive no matter what.

There’s also a really fine line between genuinely addressing a need and assuming that all black males (and black children in general) are in need of self-regulation instruction, or need to be taught social and emotional skills any more than any other group of kids. I’m reminded of Chris Rock’s autobiographical sitcom Everybody Hates Chris and the stereotypical assumptions his white teacher, Ms. Morello, makes about him. She figures that because Rock is black, he comes from a low-income, single-parent household that serves crack and malt liquor for breakfast. Ms. Morello behaves in the most condescending ways possible—all in the name of trying to help him.

As sticky as rolling out an emphasis on social and emotional skills might get, Matthews and Barbarin could be on the right track. Sadly, there simply isn’t enough research on black boys’ experiences in the early grades to say definitively what will improve things. What is for sure is that if we genuinely want to put the 3.9 million black boys under the age of nine in America on the college track, something has to change with the way schools currently teach them.

Few bonds in life are more influential than those between a young person and an adult.                                         

As you begin your journey toward becoming a mentor, you will need to thoroughly understand the role of mentoring. Look at a role you are already familiar with. Most of us have had a supervisor, a boss or coach who has made a positive difference in our lives. Those people wore many hats. They acted as, delegators, role models, cheerleaders, policy enforcers, advocates, and friends. As a mentor you will wear these same hats.

Mentors understand the need to assume a number of different roles during the course of a mentoring relationship, but successful mentors also share the same basic qualities:

• A sincere desire to be involved with a young person
• Respect for young people
• Active listener
• Empathy
• See solutions and opportunities
• Be flexible and open

As you and your mentee begin your relationship; exploring values, interests and goals, you will find yourself making a difference and having a positive effect on their life. What you may also be surprised to see is that you will be learning more about yourself, too. Mentoring doesn’t just affect the young person. Mentoring is a shared opportunity for learning and growth. Many mentors say that the rewards they gain are as substantial as those for their mentees. Being a mentor enables them to:

• Have fun
• Achieve personal growth, learn more about themselves
• Improve their self-esteem and feel they are making a difference
• Gain a better understanding of other cultures and develop a greater appreciation for diversity
• Feel more productive and have a better attitude at work
• Enhance their relationships with their own children

Good mentors are willing to take time to get to know their mentees, to learn new things that are important to the young person, and even to be changed by their relationship. Accept the challenges and rewards of mentoring a young person and experience the benefits that will last each of you a lifetime.