Indulge...In A Mammogram?
A little food and fun goes a long way toward detecting breast cancer at the Wichita Clinic.
Every three seconds in America, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s tough enough to receive the news, but the screening process is often clinical, impersonal, cold. Last year, Wichita Clinic’s Terri Peters, R.N., began to warm things up a little by piloting Wichita’s first mammogram parties, quarterly get-togethers that mix pleasure with precaution. It’s girls-night-out with a serious side.
At the parties, held at three of Wichita Clinic’s eleven locations, Peters serves cheese and crackers. There’s a chocolate fountain for dipping marshmallows. Women can get a paraffin hand wax treatment and a massage. By completing a survey, partygoers enter into a drawing for a $175 treatment at Wichita Clinic’s spa, Advanced Aesthetics. And of course, there’s time for a mammogram.
The indulgences lighten the mood for the exam, still the most practical and effective way to catch breast cancer in its early stages. According to breastcancer.org, mammograms have reduced deaths in women over 50 with breast cancer by 35 percent. Women older than 40 should have a mammogram every one to two years, according to the National Cancer Institute. At party’s end, Peters gives participants a Gerber daisy to give to a friend to remind her to schedule a mammogram.
The clinic has also made strides in post-mammogram treatment. Much of the anxiety that comes with breast exams occurs afterwards in the wait for results. When a lump is found, it can take weeks for doctors to order tests, get results and work out a treatment schedule. The clinic has restructured this process, allowing radiologists to order tests. They’ve also drastically cut the time it takes to meet with a surgeon, from three weeks to three days.
Once a woman is diagnosed, she can sit with loved ones in the clinic’s exam-turned-conference room to talk about her cancer and treatment. With the patients’ approval, each case is then examined in pretreatment classes by physicians, oncology experts and general practitioners in and around Wichita. “It’s kind of like getting a second, third, fourth, fifth opinion all at one time,” says Angie Prather, the clinic’s spokeswoman.
But the clinic’s efforts at combating breast cancer begin with making mammograms more comfortable and accessible. Companies, church groups, clubs or any group of 10 to 30 can schedule mammogram parties with Peters. Plus, the parties are free, so long as participants have insurance. “The whole theory behind it is to encourage women to get mammograms,” says Peters. “It’s really not something we thought we would make money on. We just wanted to bring something nice to something that’s unpleasant.”
