W.A.V.E Brings Mobile Unit For Annual Mammogram Screening

W.A.V.E+brings+Assured+Imagings+Mobile+Unit+to+the+NMSU+Campus+on+Oct.+30+and+31%2C+To+Make+Mammogram+Screenings+more+Convenient+and+Accessible+for+the+Community.+

Zack Jimenez

W.A.V.E brings Assured Imaging’s Mobile Unit to the NMSU Campus on Oct. 30 and 31, To Make Mammogram Screenings more Convenient and Accessible for the Community.

According to www.breastcancer.org, one in eight U.S. women will develop invasive breast cancer in their lifetime—this is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in American women, after skin cancer. 

New Mexico State University’s Wellness, Alcohol and Violence Education (WAVE) Program brought in a mobile mammography screening unit from Assured Imaging on Monday, October 30 and Tuesday, October 31. The purpose of this is to make mammograms more convenient and accessible for everyone in the campus area.

Paula Sedillo, a Mammographer, who graduated from NMSU in 1990, was part of the visiting unit on Monday and Tuesday.

“What I’m getting feedback as far as the employees of NMSU… is that they really appreciate it because it comes to them. Otherwise they don’t usually don’t make the time to go and get their mammogram somewhere else, their bone density somewhere else,” Sedillo said.

Kirsta Bezenke, a health education specialist at WAVE, thinks that this is an awesome opportunity. Even if the younger college crowd is not in need of mammograms, this is good for faculty and staff, and it brings more awareness about the importance of mammograms to the entire campus. This event has been happening for at least nine years. WAVE reaches out to Assured Imaging, which also visits a lot of different campuses and locations throughout the state of New Mexico.

The mobile unit is comprised of a mammography unit, as well as a bone-density scanner. The equipment is state-of-the-art, and the unit is also able to check for diabetes and skin cancer. Screenings usually take 15 to 20 minutes. Women should consult their doctors if they are thinking of being screened for a mammogram.

The event is a great resource for the NMSU community. “I had one patient this morning who’s a faculty member, she’s a professor and she said, ‘I’ve done this with you guys for nine years,’” Sedillo said. Assured Imaging has a fixed site now in Las Cruces, but they still do visit different events in the city during the week.

Martha Pacheco, an NMSU student who is working on her Master’s Degree in Administrative Business, and her mother, Martha Orozco, visited the mobile unit. To Martha Orozco, the visiting van is, “100 percent convenient, because her doctor would have to send her to another place, that her insurance doesn’t cover for… and this one when we did the phone call to register for the appointment, her insurance covered it for her.” 

“It makes me feel proud of our community because they’re aware that this is happening around the world and in our community, so it brings it, like, it’s an awareness that we are bringing for everybody within the community,” says Pacheco. “We need to be aware of our bodies, in general, as females,” she concluded.

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