The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is one of the world’s most respected centers devoted exclusively to the elimination of cancer in Texas, the nation, and the world through outstanding programs that integrate patient care, research and prevention, and through education for undergraduate and graduate students, trainees, professionals, employees and the public.

This brochure series is a system of four brochures that provides an overview of Pancreatic Cancer and goes into greater depth on nutrition, the management of side effects from the disease and its treatment and participation in clinical trials.

The brochures were produced to educate the patient and their family, and empower them in choices surrounding their treatment and care. Awareness of pancreatic cancer is very limited, and depending on the stage of the cancer at the time of diagnosis, the prognosis is generally very poor with a high mortality rate.

I Can Heal, a message of motivation and strength, was used to empower the reader with hope as they become educated about the disease. The strategy was to produce a piece that was comprehensive in its scope but void of a lot of clinical terminology, so patients of varying levels of education could understand. A strong visual aesthetic and illustrations that “humanize” the content were used to help patients and doctors understand and explain the disease, respectively. Rather than produce one bound book, four separate brochures are part of the system so that, as medicine advances and things change, it is more cost effective to reproduce that specific piece rather than the whole.

This piece was produced as the result of an Ideas That Matter grant from Sappi Paper that I applied for and received. My father-in-law was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and passed away a year later. I watched my mother-in-law and wife search tirelessly for information on the disease to educate themselves. My goal was to make it easier for other families to access this important information.