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BY YOLANDA McCUTCHEN AGAINST CANCER COLLETTA ORR: THE FIGHT
Medical College, Morehouse School of Medicine and Vanderbilt University. After graduation, she was having difficulty finding a fellowship where she could continue to study ovarian cancer. Brabham-Orr also had an interest in breast cancer and accepted a research fellowship at Georgetown University Lombardi Cancer Center in Washington, D.C. After completing the breast cancer fellowship, she was able to pivot back to ovarian cancer research in 2004 at the National Cancer Institute. With two prestigious fellowships on her resume, Brabham-Orr became a recognized expert in the fields of breast and ovarian cancer which she feels it is critical to raise awareness among African Americans, “The thing that’s so odd about breast cancer is that white women get diagnosed more often more frequently than Black women, but Black women die more. We have a higher death rate from breast cancer.” Brabham-Orr says the factors vary on why Black women are dying at a higher rate from breast cancer, but early detection is critical to survival “Perhaps Black women are not going to get mammograms. If you’re not going to get mammograms or going to your gynecologist and getting a manual exam done, when you find out if you have breast cancer, it’s already in stage three or stage four.” For this reason, she addresses community groups and organizations to educate them on the importance of mammography. Screenings for breast cancer are important for both women and men because both have breast tissue. Brabham- Orr advises that there is no guarantee that someone will never get breast cancer, but it is possible to reduce the risk of developing the disease, she says to “exercise and watch what you eat, no
C olletta Brabham-Orr’s path to Voorhees College and to becoming a cancer researcher both stem from her family’s background and experiences. Growing up in Hampton, South Carolina, Brabham-Orr’s family spoke probably about their relative Elizabeth Evelyn Wright-Menafee, the founder of Voorhees College and she grew to admire her pioneering family member, “She was very young, and she persevered until she found a place that was safe to build Voorhees. She started building it in Hampton, South Carolina but it was burned down by the KKK. That’s how she ended up moving the school to Denmark. She was only in her twenties. Because of my family ties to the institution, I chose Voorhees.” Brabham-Orr knew that she wanted to attend the college that her ancestor had fought so hard to build, and there she studied biology with the intent to pursue cancer research because of her grandmother, “I chose that major because my grandmother passed away from ovarian cancer when I was 18. We didn’t understand the disease. She questioned why did this have to happen to me? And when she said that it sparked my interest. Since then, I’ve been striving to learn more about the disease.”
Brabham-Orr poured herself into her studies, and by the time she graduated in 2002 had completed internships at Meharry
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