UFT members and retirees took advantage of the opportunity to learn from the top doctors in the fields of breast, prostate and lung cancer treatment by attending the UFT Welfare Fund Medical Learning Series Workshops offered at union headquarters in March. More than 100 attended a breast cancer seminar on March 24 with Dr. Clifford Hudis, the chief and attending physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The seminar was co-sponsored by the UFT Welfare Fund and the cancer support group SHARE. They learned about the leading causes of breast cancer, as well as new developments in the field, including the personalization of treatment. The importance of mammograms — the screening tool to help in detection — was highlighted. On March 26, Drs. Bradley Pua and Marc Shiffman of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center addressed a group who came to learn more about men’s health issues and lung cancer. Although lung cancer doesn’t get the attention it deserves, it is actually the leading cause of death in the United States. Its five-year survival rate is a mere 16 percent, Dr. Pua said, because the majority of cases are diagnosed at a late stage, when symptoms appear. Early detection and screening to detect the disease in its asymptomatic stage would increase the five-year survival rate to 90 percent, he said. Dr. Pua encouraged the group to take advantage of these tools. Dr. Schiffman spoke to the group about prostate embolization, a minimally invasive surgical option to treat enlarged prostates. He also discussed a new and simple 15-minute treatment for headaches, including migraines, that has helped his patients.