The "Make a date, mate" campaign, instigated by Darlinghurst GP, Dr Jeremy Cumpston, is aimed at getting men aged 50 and over to see their local doctor (annually) and have a prostate examination.

Yep, that's right…getting Aussie men to have a simple blood test and have a finger put up their bum by their local doc and to improve the rate of early detection of prostatic cancer.

Jeremy's desire to raise awareness amongst doctors and patients alike as to the necessity of regular prostatic checks came about very recently when a 50 year gentleman asked him for a prostate screen. He suddenly found himself hesitating to carry out a simple digital rectal examination (DRE). He realized he himself had not done a DRE as a GP on a male for over 5 years and, yes, he was cringing at the thought of having to do one.

In terms of the attitude a GP should have to prostate cancer screening he recognized his immediate reaction was decidedly "not cool". The truth was he felt under confident in his ability to assess what was normal from abnormal when doing a DRE.

Jeremy figured it was time he had a good hard look at his attitude, particularly given his father suffered with prostate cancer and his grandfather died from the disease.

When he learned that over 13,000 Australian men are diagnosed with Prostate cancer yearly, more than breast and uterine cancer combined, it was pretty clear that he was not alone in avoiding the DRE.

He felt he could use his film and television experience to dispel the "cringe factor" of DRE by making a humourous community service advertisement using the comedy genius of none other than Michael Caton (The Castle, Strange Bed Fellows etc).

And so, armed with a pretty silly script outline he rang Michael and asked if he would be involved. Michael did not hesitate to agree.

Jeremy sought sponsorship from various marketing agencies (Marketingeye), medical researchers (Minomic), web designers (markomedia), Urological specialists (Dr Raji Kooner), Divisions of General Practice and Australia's leading television production company (Product Placement) to make the ads and provide an information resource for like minded GP's.

Jeremy has furthermore been approaching the leading pathology companies in Australia to give a $5.00 donation to the Prostate Cancer Foundation for every prostate blood test that they receive in the month of November that is over and above their lowest average monthly figure. Thus far SDS has already agreed to be the first company to support this initiative.

The response has been universally positive. It is hoped the national awareness campaign commencing early November, 2007 will be a first step to improving early detection as well as raising the funds for a worthy cause.

The campaign urges men to come in during the month of November and have a DRE and a PSA blood test. More importantly it asks GP's to sign up to help raise funds for prostate cancer by becoming actively involved in the campaign in the last week of November.

GP's who become involved will be sent "make a date, mate" fundraising kits and have access (online) to the instructional video on correct DRE procedure (what to look and feel for) provided by leading prostate cancer specialist Dr Raji Kooner of St Vincent's Clinic.

Dr Kooner and Dr Cumpston aim to provide catered follow up information sessions for GP's, hopefully co-ordinated through the various divisions, early in 2008.

It is hoped the "Make a date, mate" initiative will, in a fun and profitable manner, actively engage GP's and the general public alike to think more about their important role in early diagnosis of prostate cancer.