"Bearing Witness" is a collection of stories from women who went through the diagnosis of ovarian cancer, and treatment for it, only to find that the cancer recurred and any hope of recovery was gone. These women represent a spectrum of ages, ethnic backgrounds, marital circumstances, and professional experiences. From their stories we learn how each woman shapes the meaning of her life. Facing a life crisis can make one bitter and angry, but it can also provide the key to a thankful and generous spirit within.

Storytelling is an important art form present in many cultures: it is a way of processing life events, of searching for meaning, and of allowing teller and listener to wrestle with the message. It is a form of teaching and learning. For the women in "Bearing Witness," stories are tangible legacies for family and friends and a chance to share their thoughts on living with the "glass half full." They inspire the reader to reflect on life's struggles and to find within themselves a sense of optimism, perhaps when they least expect to.

Kathryn Carter's concluding essay places these stories in the context of contemporary discourses of illness and healing.

This novel text outlines issues faced by the majority of women living in low and middle income countries. The unique aspect of this book is the numerous examples of innovative solutions that have been implemented in various global settings. The chapter authors are transparent concerning the barriers encountered and successes experienced. This book covers well known medical issues related to pregnancy (like maternal morbidity, and abortion, female genital cutting), HIV, and gynecologic cancers with a focus on cervical cancer prevention and treatment. This book goes beyond the medical diagnoses to explore the social determinants of health such as environment priorities like the water-health nexus, social ills like human trafficking, political influencers like the impact of advocacy and low and high resource countries' government agendas and the books closes with a discussion on the bioethical dilemmas. This goal of this book is to enable the reader to understand that by improving the status of women how this benefits the whole family and community. We ultimately hope that the reader becomes engaged in the process of improving the status of these women's.

Globally, cervical cancer is the second leading cause of death for women with cancer. This is a tragedy in part because cervical cancer affects women usually a decade sooner than other cancers when those women are in their reproductive years and in the prime years in the labour force. While screening with the Pap test or other more recently evaluated tests have resulted in low cervical cancer rates in high resource countries, the lack of screening options in low resource countries means that many women present with symptoms reflective of advanced disease and so the chance of survival is low even with aggressive treatment. In this book, we have an international spectrum of authors from both high and low resource settings. We review the risk factors that lead to cervical cancer. We discuss novel screening techniques including HPV testing. We present the capacity for HPV vaccines to markedly reduce cervical cancer rates. Planning and implementing an organised cervical screening program and the assessment of quality indicators as a means of evaluation is outlined. In this book, we discuss novel operative options in early stage invasive cervical cancer as a means of preserving fertility. Also, we discuss the role of neoadjuvant chemotherapy as a means of down staging the disease. The role of surgically staging women to define more advanced disease is outlined including options for management of metastatic and/or recurrent disease with chemotherapy and targeted therapies. The special situation of women found to be pregnant during the diagnosis of pre-invasive or invasive cervical cancer; and the diagnosis and management principles are reviewed. Just as poliomyelitis has almost been eliminated in the lifetime of one generation, we look forward to the elimination of oncogenic HPV and its deadly ramifications particularly for women exposed to this virus.

This book presents an in-depth overview of the medical, psychosocial and sexuality issues that confront women affected by cancer.

Cervix Cancer is the second leading cause of death for women world wide. The rates of breast cancer are quickly rising through out the world. In part these dismal statistics are related to the fact that disease in low resource countries is identified in advanced stages when cure is improbable. Cervix and breast cancer are preventable or at least curable when identified earlier. This can happen when screening programs are in place. This compendium provide references to the international agencies and societies involved in dealing with this problem, research conducted on breast and cervical cancer prevention and control in the low resource countries of the Western hemisphere and educational resources available for cancer control planner through to the public.

This is an innovative text using didactic information and case studies to address those issues that affect most of the world's women. The first half of the book focuses on health issues that specifically affect women such as maternal mortality, fistulas, and cervical cancer. The second part of the book discusses how agencies such as governments, non-governmental organisations, and professional societies can partner and improve standards for women. By affecting the status of women, the whole family and community ultimately benefit.