Plastic surgeon expands efforts to help breast cancer patients
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Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 Time: 1:52 PM
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By Laura Ingram
DULUTH — Dr. David Whiteman sees’ how his patients with breast cancer
suffer so he decided to do more than just reconstruct their surgically
removed breasts.
Four years ago; Whiteman began introducing patients to one
another in kind of a one-on-one support system at his office, Southern
Plastic Surgery at 3855 Pleasant Hill Road in Duluth. The patients have
met in his exams rooms to see what they have to expect during and after
the surgery or talk over the phone.
Discussions went much deeper than just the plastic surgery.
They talk about their experience with breast cancer, from diagnosis to
chemotherapy, and their doctors. But this network of breast cancer
patients — the Breast Cancer Survivors Information Network — has grown
into another movement.
Both Whiteman and these patients want to do more; they want to
reach out to women who have just been diagnosed by giving them a breast
cancer handbook.
“Gwinnett County is growing so rapidly but our ability get
information to the patients is lagging behind,” Whiteman said. Patients
need to know more Information is vital when you are first diagnosed
with breast cancer.
“When you are first told, you just go on overload,” said
Dacula resident Gail Toelle, 65, who wears a bandanna around her head
to decorate the effects of her recent chemotherapy.
Another patient, Cindy Overton, 42, recalled, ‘You are just told where to go and what to do next. You don’t have any ownership.”
Talking to other patients later helped Toelle and Overton but
they wanted something more and something sooner to answer their
questions.
Cindy Snyder director of breast health services at Gwinnert
Medical Center follows up on the approximate 17 annual patients
diagnosed with breast cancer and has witnessed the effect of a
diagnosis. “It’s hard to hear that word, ‘cancer,’” Snyder said.
“Whatever they hear after that word, they may not hear.”
One patient told Snyder that she woke up at 3 a.m.,
remembering a question about breast cancer that she wished she had
asked. Snyder hears similar incidents from other patients.
Book answers questions
If every patient had the network’s “Your Breast Cancer
Treatment Handbook,” by registered nurse Judy Kneece, patients and
health professionals alike agree that the book would help. “It gives
them the information they need at the time when they need it,” Snyder
said.
Whiteman has just sent out letters last week, asking for $25
donations for each of the 200 books he wants to purchase for the newly
diagnosed. The donation will allow donors to dedicate the book in honor
of someone who had breast cancer on the bookplate inside the front
cover. The books will be a part of the Gwinnett Hospital System’s
Foundation’s breast cancer resource library at Gwinnett Medical Center.
Campaign expands breast cancer services
The Foundation has already raised $540,000 of it $2 million
campaign to expand breast cancer services in Gwinnett according to John
Riddle, the Foundation’s executive director.
The first $400,000 paid for a screening mammograph center to
decrease the three month wait for routine mammograms. The remaining
$140,000 will go toward the $800,001 second phase of the campaign, That
phase includes a resource library and an expanded center for diagnostic
mammography.
“That’s where these books will be made available,” Riddle
said. For more information about Breast Cancer Survivor Information
Network or their book drive, call Southern Plastic Surgery at
www.southernplasticsurgery.com or (770) 622-9100
The Gwinnett Hospital System Foundation can be reached at (678) 442-4634.
About the Author
Board Certified Plastic Surgeon Dr. David Whiteman, serving Atlanta, Duluth, and Alpharetta GA, offers advanced techniques to achieve a natural look in Breast Augmentation, Breast Implants, and Breast Enhancement surgery.
Check out www.breastimplants411.com for more information.
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