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Show Rural Cancer Clinics Fight Problems of Doctor Shortage A major medical crisis has developed in the rural areas of America the disappearance of the small town country doctor. For many people in rural rur-al areas, physicians are too far away to conveniently conven-iently provide routine medical me-dical care. Only an emergency emer-gency seems to justify a drive up to an hour or more to reach a doctor's office. Utah shares in this problem. prob-lem. Several counties covering cov-ering vast areas in the south and central portion of the state are without a single physician. In dozens do-zens of small towns there is no doctor. Federal agencies, the governor's office and medical med-ical schools are deeply concerned about the effect of all this on the health and well - being of Utahns. Meetings have been held, commissions formed, proposals pro-posals put forth and discussions dis-cussions have filled the air with words. But the problem continues. What is needed is some action. There is -one agency actually ac-tually doing something, however. Based on a voluntary vol-untary private program, the Utah Division of the American Cancer Society is sending teams of doctor and nurses into rural areas to provide free one-day one-day cancer detection clinics clin-ics for women. Known as the Virginia Whitney Memorial Project, the clinics are primarily focused on detecting the two most common forms of malignancy to strike wo. en breast cancer and cervical . cancer. The chances for cures in these types of cancer are favorable if the disease dis-ease is caught in the early stages. This requires regular re-gular physical checkups and the taking of the sim. pie Pap smear test. But these checkups are unavailable un-available in rural towns because of the doctor s'hortage. When the Virginia Whitney Whit-ney Project schedules a cancer clinic for a rural area, it is done with the cooperation of whatever local doctors are available, plus a team of visiting doctors and nurses. They give the physical examinations examina-tions and the Pap smear tests. Women volunteers for the Cancer Society then attempt to contact every woman in the county with an invitation for the clinic. clin-ic. In fact, some of these same volunteers were found during the clinic checkup to have malignancies. If such workers who are already alerted to the dangers dan-gers of cancer can have it without being aware of it, the necessity for all wo. men -to- have-annual -phy. sical checkups becomes obvious. ob-vious. Within the past 12 months some 3,000 Utah women have visited . the free clinics and a number of cases of previously undetected un-detected malignancies were found. If there is any reason rea-son for a follow-up (for suspicious cancer symptoms symp-toms or any other health problem) the women are referred to their family physician. Not only have lives been saved because cancer was detected early, but when hundreds of women in a rural ru-ral county turn out for a physical examination, the effects on general health are bound to be significant. The whole project (named1 (nam-ed1 after a gallant Utah woman who died from cancer can-cer and funded through an annual golf contest throughout the state) has received the endorsement of the Utah Medical Association. Asso-ciation. There's not a lot of mon. ey involved, but right now the Cancer Society seems to be leading the way in trying to provide good health care for the state's rural citizens. |
