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Nancy Homler is a radiation
oncology nurse with the San Juan Regional Cancer Center in
Farmington, New Mexico.
Frances
Robinson is a Breast
Health Specialist at the Center and is associated with the
New Mexico
Breast and Cervical Cancer
Early Detection Program.
Fran and Nancy are certified to teach and to certify other practitioners in
the MammaCare Method of CBE. The course's palpation training has
been validated in many published scientific studies
as the most effective skill-based methods for physical
examination of the breast.
To become certified, a clinician must examine a series of six
specially designed, tactually accurate breast models and achieve at
least 90% sensitivity and 80% specificity in detecting very small
palpable simulated lesions. Additionally, clinicians must perform an actual clinical breast examination in
which a minimum of 95% of the breast tissue is palpated using all of
the validated MammaCare techniques.
Courses are offered every
3 months, or every quarter, at San Juan Regional Cancer Center. Each course consists
of two 4-hour sessions. There is one instructor for every
two trainees.
Interested clinicians should
contact Fran Robinson or
Nancy Homler as soon as possible.
(MammaCare Certified
Clinical Breast Examiners)
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New
Breast Cancer Education and Training Program for the Students and
Women in the Community
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Nancy and
Fran also have designed a three-tiered
educational program called "Generation to Generation." The high school
program, the first tier, presents risk reduction and early detection information to San
Juan County 12th grade young women. They receive hands-on
breast self-examination (BSE) training with
tactually accurate MammaCare breast models, stressing the 5 P's of
MammaCare needed for a proper examination. The goal of
this program is to empower
students to share information learned with adult family members and to
make lifestyle choices that will reduce their risk for breast cancer.
The
second tier teaches MammaCare BSE to adult women in group settings
(again using breast models and the 5 P's of MammaCare). This program
targets church groups and health programs in businesses. The third
tier is the provider program where MammaCare CBE is taught to
providers in the community. Hands-on
training with live volunteers is combined with
breast model exams.
The
provider training offers CME/CEU credits and, upon successful
completion, a National Certification from MammaCare.
All parts
of Generation to Generation are aimed at early detection of breast cancer.
Fran and Nancy firmly believe that, "Although we cannot prevent breast cancer, we can certainly find it
earlier and offer a more hopeful outcome to the women in our
community, our state, our
nation, and our world. "
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