NCI at Frederick employees have a unique opportunity to contribute directly to cancer and AIDS research by donating blood, saliva, and other samples through the Research Donor Program (RDP). Donors are compensated for their time, which is typically between 10 and 30 minutes. The RDP, which is administered by Occupational Health Services (OHS), Leidos Biomedical Research, provides samples from healthy donors for use in in vitro research conducted at NCI at Frederick and Fort Detrick. Samples are provided anonymously to researchers.

Are you looking forward to spring? Join Occupational Health Services (OHS) and the R&W Club Frederick for the next Take a Hike Day in April. At the fall event, about 30 employees walked or jogged the 1.3-mile course around the NCI at Frederick campus during their lunch hours. The event is designed to encourage employees to engage in physical activity, according to Sarah Hooper, manager of OHS.

The chilly weather didn’t dampen the spirits of Take a Hike Day participants on Wednesday, April 2. Over 50 employees braved cool, misty weather to walk or jog around Fort Detrick during their lunch hours. “The Take a Hike Day is [a way] to encourage everyone to get up and get moving,” said Sarah Hooper, RN, manager of Occupational Health Services (OHS). “OHS and the R&W partnered to encourage employees to engage in physical activity to improve their health.”

Occupational Health Services and the Recreation and Welfare (R&W) Club Frederick teamed up for the first Take a Hike Day at NCI at Frederick on November 21. Employees were encouraged to hike, walk, jog, or run the 1.3-mile course around Fort Detrick. “For those employees who walk all the time, the event gave them a partner to walk with, and for those that do not walk all the time, it gave inspiration that 1.3 miles was not a formidable distance,” said Sarah Hooper, manager of Occupational Health Services.

Janine Bahsali and Esther Shafer are Middletown High School seniors who go to school in the morning and spend their afternoons taking blood pressure, assisting with physical exams, learning how to draw a blood sample and stitch a wound closed, and generally assisting the staff of Occupational Health Services (OHS), a health care department serving more than 2,000 employees at NCI at Frederick.