The Jackson Laboratory offers online physician CME training for family cancer risk assessment

Family Risk AssessmentPhysicians can improve their ability to assess their patients’ cancer risk and screening needs by taking online CME training provided by The Jackson Laboratory. 

“Family history is the quickest and cheapest genetic ‘test’ for cancer risk,” says Kate Reed, director of JAX Clinical and Continuing Education. “With training, physicians can use family history to better identify patients at increased risk of a genetic syndrome, such as hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, who would benefit from earlier or more frequent cancer screening.” 

New guidelines of the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force and other organizations recommend family history screening for all patients with a family history of breast and ovarian cancer. “The new CME builds physicians’ skills and knowledge that promote compliance with these recommendations,” Reed says. 

The training program, “Family History for Cancer Risk Assessment, Testing and Management,” provides a quick, convenient way for physicians to earn CME and download the associated point-of-care tools to use with patients. The modules provide the opportunity to practice family history risk assessment by working through cases and watching best practices.

The CME training, which is supported by educational grants from The Maine Cancer Foundation and The Jackson Laboratory Director’s Innovation Fund, is part of The Jackson Laboratory’s growing roster of continuing education programs designed to help health care providers integrate genetics and genomics into clinical care. 

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of the University of Connecticut School of Medicine and The Jackson Laboratory. The University of Connecticut School of Medicine is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians. 

The University of Connecticut School of Medicine designates this enduring material for a maximum of .25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

The Jackson Laboratory is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institution based in Bar Harbor, Maine, with a facility in Sacramento, Calif., and the new genomic medicine institute in Farmington, Conn. It employs more than 1,600 staff, and its mission is to discover precise genomic solutions for disease and empower the global biomedical community in the shared quest to improve human health.