Researchers at the University of Iowa were key contributors to a national study that finds cancer care in rural America is lacking and without significant changes, won’t likely improve. One of the study’s authors, Dr. Blase Polite, a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago, says there are too few cancer specialists in rural areas and they face an increasing number of cancer patients. “We know that 20% of Americans live in rural areas but we found that only 3% of our cancer docs, our oncologists, are living in those areas,” Dr. Polite says. “Amazingly, 70% of counties in the United States don’t have a cancer specialist and our concern is that this is likely to get worse.”

It costs a tremendous amount of money to maintain a cancer treatment practice and the report finds many smaller operations won’t be around much longer. Polite says those doctors face a host of challenges, not the least of which is burnout. Polite says, “A lot of our small practices, those one- and two-doc or four- and five-doc practices, we surveyed them and almost two thirds of them will likely close or merge or sell in the next year because a lot of the cost pressures going on.” Medical advances are helping people to live longer, healthier lives, but he notes, there’s something of a downside to our increasing longevity, especially for rural residents.

“As we live longer, it’s just a biological fact that more people are likely to get cancer but our cancer workforce isn’t going to keep up with that,” Polite says. “We anticipate that if we continue the way we’re going right now and continue the way we deliver care right now, as many as 400,000 cancer patients out there in the future may have a difficult time finding a doc.” One of the fears is that some rural patients will simply give up because of the uphill fight to get treatment in a far-away city.

Polite says, “You have to imagine when folks have to travel three and four hours to get care, especially if you’ve got cancer and you’re not feeling great, there are going to be some folks who just decide not to keep going forward with treatment.” Polite is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which put out the report, “The State of Cancer Care in America: 2014.” Learn more at the website: www.asco.org

(Radio Iowa)

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) – Authorities in Sioux City are investigating an attempted abduction near a park.
Sioux City television station KTIV reports that a 12-year-old boy told police he was walking home from Highview Park shortly after 6 p.m. on Friday when a man in a black ski mask tried to lure him into a van.

The boy reported that the van was white with a blue air freshener inside. Police are still searching for the suspect. Sioux City Police Sgt. Kevin Heineman is urging parents to remind their children not to talk to strangers and to report any suspicious activity to an adult.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) – An embattled Iowa high school principal says he wants school board discussions of his firing to be aired in public. The Des Moines Register reports that Red Oak High School Principal Jedd Sherman says he has nothing to hide, and he has requested that the Red Oak School Board conduct its talks about him in an open meeting.

Sherman says the board’s efforts to fire him are retaliation for him reporting two cases of student bullying. Sherman says top school officials were also unhappy after he requested that an already-planned bathroom remodeling project be done in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

School board member have declined to discuss their reasons for trying to fire Sherman, but have refused his request to conduct their discussion in public.

Firefighters in Atlantic were called to the scene of a possible house fire early this (Monday) morning. The Cass County Communications Center dispatched the fire department to 602 Mulberry Street at 4:51-a.m., following a report of the smell of smoke in a bedroom.

Law enforcement arriving on the scene also detected a burning, electrical smell, but could not locate a fire. Fire crews determined an electrical outlet on a bedroom wall was hot. The problem was confined to the single outlet.There was no fire however, and no one was injured.

Power to the home was restored and fire crews returned to their station by around 5:25-a.m.