ABSTRACTDuring an informal discussion with some coworkers, the author was embarrassed to discover that not one of the nurses present (herself included) could recall the American Cancer Society's Seven Warning Signals of Cancer. A subsequent survey of 81 nurses employed in a general acute‐care community hospital indicated that this is not an uncommon phenomenon. Questions are therefore raised concerning the actual integration and utilization in our professional practice of one of the most readily available and basic tools of cancer detection.