The women were assembled for a lunch-and-learn session about breast cancer.
They felt various lumps in a plastic model of a breast. They received instruction on self-exams. And they listened to a description about how mammo-grams work.
One woman raised her hand and told Elbia Altamirez that she had a lump and that doctors had told her that she was fine, but she wasn’t so sure.
Altamirez talked with the woman during a break and arranged for her to have a free clinical screening and mammogram to assuage her fears.
That sort of one-on-one counseling is at the heart of Altamirez’s work as a bilingual community-health educator with Forsyth Medical Center Imaging — The Breast Clinic, which is part of Novant Health. The Breast Clinic was founded in 1975 and specializes in breast imaging and is certified in mammography.
Her mission is to educate minority women about breast cancer and to make sure that they receive regular breast screenings.
Altamirez said she feels a sense of urgency. The potential to improve the health of the women she works with is great.
“I want to feel that I was able to help at least one person,” she said. “Many people who come to me have never had a physical, or they haven’t had one in years.”
Sometimes Altamirez refers women to other sources who can offer help. She maintains a list of doctors who are willing to work with their patients in regard to fees.
The Avon Foundation Breast Care Fund is paying for her position, which is part time, with a one-year $32,000 grant. Over the course of the year, Altamirez’s mission is to reach 800 women and teach them about self-examinations, mammograms and clinical breast exams.
“This is a great grant, and going forward we’ll evaluate it and see if it’s beneficial,” said Kim Cannon, the center manager of the Breast Clinic. “And if it’s beneficial to reach women in the community, we’re going to find ways to do that.”
Altamirez, who is also working on a nursing degree at Winston-Salem State University, will go to women wherever they are — in churches, health fairs and workplaces. She sometimes travels with a mobile unit that has two technicians who take mammograms for evaluation by the Breast Clinic.
The breast-cancer rates for Hispanic women are lower than those of other ethic groups, but Hispanic women are 20 percent more likely to die of breast cancer than white women because the cancer is caught at a later stage, Cannon said.
Many Hispanic women do not receive regular screenings for a variety of reasons, she said.
Those include a language barrier, lack of health insurance or transportation, and embarrassment about discussing breast health and performing exams.
Sometimes women don’t understand that they may qualify for free mammograms, Altamirez said.
And often, women simply don’t make their own health a priority.
“We get busy taking care of family, house, children,” she said.
“We tend to put our health aside.”
Altamirez said that she tries to get women to see that in order to take care of their families, they must take care of themselves first.
She has worked in a dropout-prevention program for English as a Second Language students at the Winston Lake branch of the YMCA of Northwest North Carolina.
At a recent lunch session with 11 women, she found that none had practiced regular breast self-examinations or had had a clinical breast exam. Only a few had had a mammogram. Altamirez said that the group was actually doing slightly better than many that she talks with.
Gloria Moreno, who lives in Clemmons, said that she attended one of Altamirez’s sessions because she wanted to learn more.
Moreno said that she came away inspired to take better care of herself.
Once women are introduced to the idea of regular health screenings, Altamirez finds that they are eager to take better care of themselves.
When a woman comes for breast screening, the doctor will do a physical if the woman is due for one. The woman might have questions about other areas of her health about which she ask the doctor, Altamirez said.
“It’s opening one door,” Altamirez said, “but you don’t know how many others you’re going to be opening.”