The American Italian Cancer Foundation is broadening its services in underserved areas of New York City, kicking off a free prostate cancer screening program at a health fair in Brooklyn organized by Flatbush Beacon, a local community organization. The program is carried out in conjunction with Novellis Health, a multispecialty healthcare group with a focus on oncology; Fans for the Cure, a prostate cancer nonprofit; and the office of Councilwoman Rita Joseph.
One of the biggest misconceptions about prostate cancer screening is that we are still in the days of doctors stretching a latex glove over their fingers as they ask the patient to face the wall. “The screening, as we try to emphasize to everybody, is a blood test,” says Joseph Cosgriff, director of operations at Fans for the Cure. “It’s not the digital rectal exam that everyone is so afraid of.” These days, initial screenings are done with blood test measuring the levels of a Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) protein. Joe explains that the results of that test are to be followed up yearly, with elevated levels calling for further investigation.
FftC started as a charity that went to baseball games back in 2003. That activity continues today, with Cosgriff telling La Voce that they’re scheduled to offer screenings at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field, and will even go as far as Kansas City to offer them at a Royals game. Much like the AICF’s activities, FftC offers the screenings for free, no insurance required. Cosgriff is glad to be teaming up with AICF in their shared mission. “I am interested in people who do the work. Anybody who takes a breast cancer bus out 230 times a year, that’s doing the work,” he says, referring to the AICF’s long-running free mammogram screening program.
Summer Sharaf, founder of Novellis Health, has made her network of facilities part of free screening programs many times over the years, this being the first occasion that they are partnering with AICF. Novellis Health bucks the current trend of medical practices getting bought by private equity firms, which oftentimes results in caregivers and staff having to weigh their practices with meeting their backers’ financial expectations. “We only answer to patients and ourselves, we don’t answer to investors,” Sharaf says, adding that she looks forward to broadening their reach through this new partnership with AICF. “I’m happy to see them expand beyond breasts, and reach out to the community for other cancers as well.”
Councilwoman Rita Joseph, who has partnered frequently with AICF since she took office in 2022, shares Cosgriff’s goal of letting men know the test is “not the old-fashioned way with a glove” and set their minds at ease. She also shares her personal stake in the issue of men’s health. “I’m a mom of four boys as well,” she says. “So I want to make sure that the men are seen and heard, and valued.” Rita has coordinated with the AICF on its flagship mammogram bus program, bringing free breast screenings to local organizations like LaSante Health Center in her district, as well as to the City Council itself on a yearly basis. “AICF has always shown up in different spaces, all the time,” she says. “I look forward to our continued partnership.”
