What is “The Panel?” at Sangone?

Welcome to Sangone's Blog, “The Panel”, where you will be contributing the latest information about HPV, and cervical cancer. The name, “The Panel” comes from the concept of a blood work panel. Often when you go to get tested for a variety of reproductive diseases, you do a “blood work panel” where you have bloodwork done to test for various reproductive diseases. At Sangone, we are essentially trying to do the same thing in the future by not just non-invasively testing for HPV, but a variety of reproductive disorders, hence “a panel”. In this blog, we want discussions, opinions, and fresh insights about HPV, and information about how it can lead to cervical cancer. We want a panel of new ideas, and you will serve as one of our “panelists” here at Sangone. 

Every 2 minutes, a woman dies of cervical cancer, a disease that is 95% preventable with early detection (WHO 2023). Yet 570,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, with over 85% occurring in low and middle-income countries where screening is scarce. At the root of this crisis are high-risk HPV strains, particularly 16 and 18, which cause over 70% of cervical cancer cases worldwide (CDC 2023). Despite the existence of Pap Smears and HPV tests, millions of women never get screened due to cost, inaccessibility, and stigma. In the U.S., Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous women are up to 40% more likely to die from cervical cancer due to systemic healthcare barriers (NCL, 2023). Cervical cancer continues to be one of the most preventable cancers, but only if we test for it! Most people need to be aware of this! 

Written forms of advocacy are potent when done correctly, and we believe you have what it takes to create op-eds, or short informational articles with either opinions backed by research, informational pieces, or even interviews with those who have been able to both work or have had HPV. In writing these different pieces for “The Panel”, your work will be in the eyes of faculty at Rutgers Medical School, Harvard Medical School, and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The more articles you write, the bigger your portfolio grows, and you can leverage this in the future to write for other blogs, or media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, or The Washington Post one day! In addition to this, for every article you write, you may log these hours in your personal Volunteer Log, including how much time you spent researching + writing & revising the article, which is how you will accrue hours throughout the program. 

We want these articles to be informational yet conversational. So many times, I think all of us have encountered medical information on the internet that comes across as “too technical” or filled with an incredible amount of “medical jargon”. This is exactly what we don’t want to do. Much of our audience will be catered to younger generations, as well as people in underserved regions who may or may not have access to education, or simply just may not know what all of these different medical terms may mean. When you’re writing, assume that you’re talking to a friend, you’re explaining what these ideas and concepts mean, and why it’s important that they know this information. When we can break down this information further, more people are receptive to its message, and will take its words into account in comparison to a piece filled with terminology that does not get through to them. We hope to see what ideas you’re able to come up with, and look forward to reading each and every one of them!