What is 34 feet long, pink and white, and can sometimes be seen on the Alaska Marine Highway? Providence Imaging Center's Mobile Digital Mammography Coach! The coach turns 3 years old in April and is busier than ever, bringing the latest breast cancer screening technology all over Southcentral Alaska.
In May, the coach will travel to the communities of Cordova, Valdez and Glennallen to provide screening mammography. Women in these communities would otherwise have to travel to Anchorage for their mammograms. Last spring, almost 140 women were screened. This will be the fifth time the coach has made this journey, and it is all carefully coordinated to ensure that things go smoothly.
First, our mobile coordinator calculates a preliminary date to ensure that it has been at least a year since our last spring visit. This is to make sure that both screening and insurance criteria are met for these patients. The next step is to carefully check the ferry schedule to see which dates are available for transporting the coach. Then she compares that with the PIC schedule to make sure a mobile technologist is available for the journey.
Finally, she contacts the sites themselves to verify that the days and times are good for the community.
The technologist going this year is Barbara DeLongchamp RT (R)(M), who will be traveling for a solid week. She is driver, technologist and an ambassador to the communities she visits all wrapped into one.
"Driving the coach through the Whittier Tunnel is interesting. Sometimes it feels like the top of the vehicle is going to scrape against the rock ceiling. And maneuvering the coach onto the ferry requires a little outside help," quipped Barbara.
This year, the first stop will be Ilanka Community Health Center in Cordova, set for May 18-19. Women who are interested contact us to pre-schedule their test, ensuring that they won't have to wait. Communication is a bit tricky in this part of the world, as cell phones often don't work. Updates on the day's schedule are faxed to the clinic, and the mammography technologist enters the pertinent information into the mammography equipment's computer.
Next stop, Providence Valdez Medical Center. The coach will travel by ferry again and see many more women over the next two and a half days. Many volunteers help to make sure things run smoothly in Valdez. Finally, Barbara will drive the coach about 70 miles over Thompson Pass to Cross Road Medical Center in Glennallen. With this site done, it's a mere 155 miles back to Anchorage, where the images will be uploaded for the radiologist to read, and the journey will be complete.