MammoVan Honored with Josetta Wilkins Award
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| Kimberly Enoch accepts the Josetta Wilkins Award on behalf of the MammoVan staff, with (left-right) Ronda Henry-Tillman, M.D.; Heather Buie; Stephanie McLean; Shakia Jackson; and Josetta Wilkins.
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April 20, 2012 | For thousands of women in Arkansas, the act of getting a mammogram is as simple as visiting their local clinic. But for the remainder of women in the state, it’s not quite so simple.
That’s where the UAMS MammoVan comes in. Since hitting the road in early 2010, the MammoVan mobile mammography unit has provided screening mammograms to more than 4,000 women who live in counties without FDA-approved mammography facilities.
Of those women, 23 were diagnosed with breast cancer and navigated to appropriate services and treatment.
The primary focus of the MammoVan program is to reduce breast cancer disparities by providing education, early detection, patient navigation and referral services.
For its efforts at reaching underserved and uninsured women across Arkansas, the UAMS MammoVan was presented the 2012 Josetta Wilkins Award for an organization dedicated to fighting breast cancer.
The annual awards are presented by BreastCare, a program of the Arkansas Department of Health. BreastCare provides free breast and cervical screening and diagnosis to qualified Arkansas women.
In addition to the MammoVan, two individuals were honored for their dedication to breast cancer awareness and education: Ella Anderson of Little Rock and Danielle Smith of Rose Bud.
The Josetta Wilkins Awards are named in honor of Wilkins, Ed.D., a former state representative and a lifetime board member of the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute.
A 19-year breast cancer survivor, Wilkins’ dedication to fighting the disease led to passage of the Breast Cancer Control Act of 1997, which ultimately created the BreastCare program.
The MammoVan program is directed by Robert Fincher, M.D., director of breast imaging and medical director of the UAMS Breast Center, and Ronda Henry-Tillman, M.D., professor of medicine at the UAMS College of Medicine and practice director of the Women’s Cancer Clinic at the UAMS Cancer Institute.
MammoVan staff includes: Kimberly Enoch, program manager; Heather Buie, mammography technician; Shakia Jackson, patient navigator; and Shannon Strickland, clinical technician.
In addition to providing mammograms, the MammoVan’s staff also navigates patients to appropriate services or physicians to assist them based on the results of their screening.