OCRA’s Survivors Teaching Students Shows SUNY Downstate Medical Students the Human Side of Ovarian Cancer (Video)

(From Marissa Joy Santorelli, News 12 Brooklyn, May 13, 2024) Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance partnered with SUNY Downstate Medical School to teach health care students things they won’t learn in a textbook. Volunteers spoke on their survivor stories, identifying symptoms, warning signs, diagnosis and treatment.

Deborah Polinsky, program facilitator and ovarian cancer survivor, tells News 12 that this program shows medical students the human side of medicine, noting “They may not remember our names or our faces, but they may remember something about our story.”

Survivor volunteers from the “Survivors Teaching Students” program have been educating from experience for over a decade. The program consists of over 1,000 volunteers and has educated over 115,000 medical students.

Want to join OCRA’s Survivors Teaching Students? Volunteers are patients, survivors, caregivers and loved ones all across the United States who share their stories to help future generations. Become a Survivors Teaching Students volunteer.