Oncofertility Communication: Sharing Information and Building Bridges across Disciplines is divided into two parts.  Part I is Communicating with Patients and Their Families and outlined in Chapters 1-10.  Part II, Communicating with Healthcare Professionals, Stakeholders and the Public starts with Chapter 11, An Interprofessional Approach to Shared Decision Making: What it Means and Where Next.

Oncofertility Communication: Sharing Information and Building Relationships across Disciplines devoted an entire chapter to the communication strategies and issues faced by oncology providers.  Chapter 10 is entitled Fertility Communication to Cancer Patients: A Hematologist-Oncologist’s Perspective and is authored by Sara Barnato Giordano.  As cancer treatments have advanced, the percentage of survivors continue to grow.

With the recent controversy surrounding Rachel Frederickson’s extreme weight loss on The Biggest Loser, it’s time to shed light on the proper (and safe) way to lose weight. For those unfamiliar with reality television, The Biggest Loser centers around overweight contestants attempting to lose weight to win a cash prize. The winner, whoever loses the highest percentage of weight, is given the title “the Biggest Loser,” along with a cool cash prize of a quarter million dollars.

In the late 1800′s there was a growing interest among women in sport, especially cycling, actually leading to some modification in clothing (bloomers!).   However, then and even now, there is an undercurrent of discrimination in sport.  For example, 19th and 20th century physicians linked athletics to childbirth complications, infertility, mannish characteristics and “heterosexual failure” (lesbianism).  In 2009, the  International Ski Federation voted against the inclusion of women in the 2010 Winter Olympics because the sport could cause “damage to their uteri or lead to infertility”.  (what about male fertility?!!)  Today, women are still not