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When the doors open at this year’s HMG Health & Fitness Expo at the ASU Convocation Center on April 10, there will be something new in the screening mix. For the first time at Expo, women who qualify can have screening mammograms performed on site – in the St. Bernards Mobile Women’s Health Unit.
“We are especially pleased to be able to offer this service for the 2010 Expo,” says Teresa Adams, director of women’s services at the St. Bernards Imaging Center. “It marks the first time actual mammograms will be performed at an Expo. And it is the first time HMG member physicians will conduct the clinical breast exams free of charge for women who qualify for the mammograms.”
Women who are interested in determining whether they qualify for the free mammograms should report to a specially designated area on the lower level of the Convocation Center. Funding for the program is being provided by grants from the Arkansas Affiliate Susan G. Komen for the Cure.
To qualify, a woman must meet the following criteria:
· Female 40 years of age or older
· No health insurance coverage
· No current breast problems (lumps, discharge, etc.)
· No personal history of breast cancer
· Must not have had a mammogram in the last 365 days.
Women who qualify will have clinical breast exams performed free of charge by physicians from OB-GYN Associates and McClurkan Clinic on site in a private exam area away from Expo booths and activities.
Should a physician find an abnormality during a breast exam, the woman will be scheduled for a diagnostic mammogram rather than a screening mammogram. Those are not performed on the St. Bernards mobile mammography unit … but are scheduled at the St. Bernards Imaging Center. Staff will be on hand to assist with any appointments that are necessary.
“Women do not need to pre-register,” Adams points out. “They simply can come by the specially designated area beginning at 8 a.m. on Saturday to see if they qualify. Then qualifying patients will be screened on a first-come, first-served basis.”
Mammograms will be performed using digital mammography equipment aboard the 36-foot RV-type St. Bernards Mobile Women’s Health Unit. The van will be in the parking lot on the east side of the Convocation Center between the red and green entrances.
In addition to offering the screening mammography, St. Bernards personnel will be on hand to direct people to an educational booth where breast health information will be available.
“We want to encourage every woman to get in the fight against breast cancer – to take an active role in her breast health,” Adams stresses, pointing to early detection as a real key to winning the battle against breast cancer.
“This is every woman’s fight … and it’s a fight we’re in to win.”
Adams points out that St. Bernards sponsors a number of events that monetarily benefit the Arkansas Affiliate Susan G. Komen for the Cure. They include things like the Arkansas Ride for the Cure (held as a part of HMG Health & Fitness Expo), a style show called Runway to a Cure, Rally for a Cure and Race for a Cure, with hundreds of women joining the St. Bernards Pink Warriors race team each year.
“This program of screening mammograms for qualifying women represents just one way some of that financial support comes back to this community from Komen.”
HMG Health & Fitness Expo hours will be 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 10, and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, April 11. Expo is sponsored by member physicians of HMG as a way showcase health and fitness services and programs available locally. It is open to the interested public free of charge.