Hologic - Clarity of Vision

Where they go

For most of the year, the majority of the screenings performed by the mobile unit are located in the Anchorage area.

When the coach is out, it makes scheduled stops at several local medical centers that are not equipped for mammography, and area businesses. In addition, the mobile unit makes scheduled visits to area schools. "If we can come to a person's place of employment," Dr. Farleigh says, "they do not have to take time off, and they can have a mammogram in the time it takes for a coffee break. Teachers especially like the convenience," she adds, "because they don't have to find a substitute teacher for the day."

Overnight schedule

During the spring and fall, longer overnight runs are added to the schedule to allow for travel to some of the region's more remote areas. Some runs can be as long as eleven days on the road, screening women in areas that would not normally have access to mammography services.

"About every other month we send the coach on an overnight trip", says Susan Kessler, RT (R)(CV)(M)(QM)CRT, the lead technologist for the mobile unit. "We go as far as Talkeetna, up near Denali National Park - Anchorage to Talkeetna is about a two and a half hour drive. And, we go out to Eagle River and the Matanuska-Susitna Valleys. The longest trips are to Valdez and Cordova. These areas require a six hour ferry ride to access."

The mobile unit is a one-person operation; the technologist is responsible for imaging the patients well as driving the coach over the road. Ms. Kessler describes a typical trip to these remote areas. "To make the Valdez/Cordova trip," she says, "I first drive the 300 miles to Valdez, which is where the oil pipeline ends. On the way, I stop in the community of Glenallen, and spend a day seeing patients there. When I arrive in Valdez, I spend three to five days there performing screening exams. Then it's a 6 hour trip on the ferry to spend three days in Cordova, then another 6 hour ferry ride back to the mainland to the town of Whittier, and then 75 miles back to the Imaging Center."

During one recent trip to Valdez/Cordova, over 200 women received screening mammograms.

The importance of convenience

According to Ms. Kessler, the mobile mammography coach makes access to life saving technology possible. "Some women have never had screening mammograms before," she says, "or if they did, they do not have them regularly, because getting to Anchorage is a huge deal for many of them. It's a long trip, and if the mobile system was not available, they would skip their exams."

“It's a long trip, and if the mobile system was not available, they would skip their exams."

"When our mobile program first began," Dr. Farleigh says, "we discovered that as many as one third of our patients had never had a mammogram before. The reason given was almost always because of convenience and access. Our mobile unit has eliminated those reasons as an excuse for not having a mammogram."