Wednesday evening nearly 20 students came to Sutton Lobby for a “Pink Party.” Registered nurse Mary Williams and nurse practitioner Susan Peoples came to the breast cancer awareness event to inform students and help them learn how to detect the disease.
Williams is the family health director of the Northeast Regional Health Office, and Peoples is the family planning nurse at the Washington County Health Department. Both of their offices are located in Johnson City.
The night was filled with games, food and an open discussion. Peoples explained how to perform monthly breast cancer self-exams, using various models to illustrate the size and texture of cysts. Williams then picked the discussion up by describing some services offered by the Washington County Health Department, including a family planning program, STD and cancer testing, provision of birth control pills and contraceptive distribution. Her office provides these services to any woman at least 13 years old and living in Tennessee. (This includes college students who only live in Tennessee during part of the year.) The WCHD offers scaled pricing based on income–in order to make the programs as affordable as possible–as well as total confidentiality.
The nurses also noted that women can enroll in the Tennessee Breast and Cervical Screening Program, which covers treatment and tests under the TennCare program.
Further information on breast self-examination can be found here.