Mayo, Hawthorne — Joining Forces to Promote Breast Health
New program to educate and screen underserved women in Rochester

Thursday, October 13, 2005

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic's Sandhya Pruthi, M.D., hopes to bring awareness and assistance to women from the Rochester area through a new breast education and screening program she has instituted at Hawthorne Education Center. The Center is the Rochester Public School facility dedicated to the promotion of literacy for adults and preschoolers and serves approximately 2,200 students each year.

"Cancer is an anxiety-provoking topic for many people, and understanding what you can do to detect and arrest breast cancer is important to all women," says Dr. Pruthi, breast health specialist at Mayo Clinic. "We hope to be able to help the women of our community who are not accessing health care to understand the importance of screening for breast cancer, and then actually get them screened."

In a program that started in early October, Dr. Pruthi and several colleagues in the Mayo Clinic Breast Diagnostic Clinic are speaking weekly to classes at Hawthorne, often working with individuals whose primary language is not English. The doctors are working to develop health literacy on the subject of breast health and the importance of mammography screening, and will perform clinical breast exams and help coordinate and schedule mammograms.

Dr. Pruthi's team will work with Hawthorne and other agencies to ensure that medical assistance and other programs are accessible. The classes and screenings will be provided free of charge. Dr. Pruthi and her team are very excited about this community partnership with Hawthorne Education Center. "The support of the school director, Julie Nigon, and the assistance of her staff, has been invaluable," says Dr. Pruthi, "We wouldn't be able to reach all these women without their help."

One of the greatest barriers to regular medical care and preventive screenings is fear, says Dr. Pruthi, and she hopes that bringing hands-on learning tools, visual aids and written materials to the classroom will enable discussion and understanding among the underserved and un-served women she will meet at Hawthorne. Dr. Pruthi believes that most important is building trust and relationships and keeping the lines of communication open with minority and underserved women. The educational materials will be developed in five languages — English, Hmong, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese. Dr. Pruthi hopes to expand that to include Arabic. "Bringing these women information is good, but to be able to discuss it with them at a level that they can understand — and in their native language — is really key," said Dr. Pruthi. "I am grateful that the Intercultural Mutual Assistance Program in Rochester will assist in interpreting and addressing the needs of these women as we get started on this program."

Dr. Pruthi and her colleagues are able to pilot this program through a grant received from the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

For more information on the Mayo Clinic Breast Diagnostic Clinic visit the Web site.

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