The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

The Daily Campus

The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

The Independent Voice of Southern Methodist University Since 1915

The Daily Campus

SMUs Tyreek Smith dunks as the Mustangs run up the scoreboard against Memphis in Moody Coliseum.
SMU finds new head coach for men’s basketball
Brian Richardson, Contributor • March 28, 2024
Instagram

Methodist Health System helps make breast cancer screening convenient

Methodist+Health+System+helps+make+breast+cancer+screening+convenient
Courtesy of Methodist Health System

(Courtesy of Methodist Health System)

While food trucks have jacked-up the convenience of eating out, the restaurant industry isn’t the only trade benefiting from storefront to wheels success. Health care has put its services on the road with mobile mammograms.

Methodist Health System, along with UT Southwestern Medical Center and Parkland Hospital, has a mobile mammography unit that travels to various businesses, community centers, churches, clinics and schools throughout Dallas, including a recent visit to Southern Methodist University on Nov. 18.

In a short 15-minute appointment, patients receive a screening mammogram identical to one at a hospital. Contrary to a hospital visit though, there are no doctors or nurses aboard. A registration coordinator and mammography technician operate the unit.

The mobile unit adds a convenience factor to mammograms, especially when it is sits in an employer’s parking lot. Two of most frequent stops for the unit are businesses and schools.

“We allow them to get their screening mammograms done at their jobs so they don’t have to take off of work,” Charla Gauthier, supervisor of Methodist Dallas Cancer Services, said.

Gauthier, a working mother, is able to sympathize with many of the unit’s patients. If she didn’t work at a hospital she would not be able to get her annual mammogram, unless she scheduled time off work. She was quick to add that isn’t a feasible luxury for everyone.

But health professionals are not the only ones to see the benefits of bringing medical services directly to patients.

“It’s definitely something I would consider just cause of the convenience factor,” SMU senior Molly Oas said in response to getting a future mammogram on a mobile unit. Oas plans to enter the work force in May 2012 and added, “It’s hard to justify taking a whole day off of work just to do that. A lot of offices, depending on where you are, aren’t opened on the weekends, they don’t have extended hours.”

SMU Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies of Clements Department of History Christa DeLuzio, had heard of mobile mammograms, but was unaware that the Methodist mobile mammography unit came to SMU’s campus.

She affirmed that she would get a mammogram on a unit, but clarified, “I have very good health care and regular health care and I have a place where I go for my mammogram every year, but I can certainly see it being advantageous particularly to working women to come to their sites.”

On Saturdays, the unit is reserved for community centers or churches. It is accompanied by a breast care educator who provides education in regards to self-breast exams, risk factors associated with developing breast cancer and family history of breast cancer.

The mobile mammography unit is not open on Sundays, but Methodist Health did have two Sunday events during October as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Since 2000, a grant from the Susan G. Komen Dallas County affiliate has provided mammograms on the unit to uninsured and underserved women in Dallas County.

“It allows for ladies who typically won’t have an opportunity to come into a hospital to get a screening mammogram, to get it done within locations that they feel comfortable or that are convenient to them,” Gauthier said about the mobile unit’s impact.

The Komen Dallas affiliate board urges Methodist Dallas to focus on screening women in specific zip codes of underserved populations, primarily African-American and Hispanic women. During 2010, 47 percent of the 3,400 patients were uninsured according to Gauthier.

Once the mammogram is complete, a technical report is sent to the patient’s primary care physician or obstetrician. The results, which state either normal or recommend more testing, are mailed to the patient’s home.

Even if the unit doesn’t stop near a woman’s place of work or residence, the large van is a driving advertisement for mammograms and the scheduling phone number is prominently displayed on the unit.

“It brings it to the forefront of people’s consciousness to remind them and to make them aware of the necessity of these kind of regular preventative testing measures,” DeLuzio said.

For Gauthier, the mobilization of mammograms all comes down to the patient’s willingness to get screened.

“It kind of breaks down the barrier of fear,” Gauthier said.

To schedule the Methodist Mobile mammography unit call
214-947-3621 and to schedule a mammogram at Methodist Health System call 214-947-0026.

The UT Southwestern mobile mammography unit is scheduled to come to SMU in April.

 

More to Discover