Community Hospital Unveils New Women's Imaging Center

A cluster of pink balloons marked the entrance of the Women’s Imaging Center at Community Medical Center Tuesday, when the hospital unveiled a new, more private facility to provide mammograms, sonar imaging and biopsies to women in the community.

The center’s strategic launch coincides with Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and in the spirit of awareness, hospital staff and doctors were present in the center Tuesday to relate the improvements on the center that were made in the past couple of months.

“This is all new,” said Community’s Director of Marketing, Sheryl Pfluger. Gesturing to a new entrance, check in and waiting room, as well as other rooms filled with medical equipment, Pfluger explained that the center was built with the goal of providing a more private space for the hospital’s breast services patients, while also consolidating all of the services into a specialized department.

In the center, digital mammogram devices, biopsy rooms and sonar rooms have been set up to service the average 15 mammogram patients a day, and a team of three doctors have been actively working to reduce the turnaround time for results of screenings over the past year.

“I think it’s a really good thing because the patients don’t have to go home and wait a week or two or even a month, because that’s time when you’re just completely nervous, you don’t know what’s going on, it’s hard to live a normal life because you’re saying, ‘Do I have cancer?’” Dr. Michael Kim said. “Most likely, you probably don’t, you just need to get a biopsy and we can get that done in the same day,” he said. 

Whereas five years ago mammograms were captured to film and results could take weeks to receive, now doctors are using a digital system and are providing results either same day or within a couple of days of screening, Kim said.

The goal to provide quicker turnaround, Kim said, was an effort on behalf of all three doctors on staff in the imaging center, who want to provide a better service to the patients in their care. 

“It was just a perfect storm where everything came together,” he said.

The Imaging Center also provides with the Laura Bush Institute to provide mammograms to un- or underinsured women in the Concho Valley, and Pfluger estimates that of the nearly 800 patients served in three partnered communities, 16 cases of cancer have been detected.

With Breast Cancer Awareness Month already a week in, Kim advises women that knowing their bodies is key to prevention. Cancer is not a death sentence, he said, and he and his staff are actively working to provide quick and accurate support for those in need of breast services.

“Just be aware of what’s going on,” he said. “[Do] regular self breast examinations [and] when you get a mammography don’t be afraid, go in with confidence…getting a callback for an abnormal screening mammogram, it doesn’t mean that you have cancer. It just means that there’s potentially something wrong and we need to come back and check it out. Statistically, you’re still probably ok.”