Mayo Clinic Alumni Association Board Member Theresa Emory, M.D., spearheads southwestern Virginia’s See Test & Treat cancer screening day

Theresa Emory, M.D.

Mayo Clinic Alumni Association Board Member Theresa Emory, M.D. (PATH ’94), is the local force behind an Aug. 5, 2017, See, Test & Treat event at Norton Community Hospital in Norton, Virginia. See, Test & Treat is a national initiative of the College of American Pathologists (CAP) Foundation that provides health services to medically underserved women.

Women who participate in the program will receive free cervical and breast cancer screenings including Pap tests, mammograms and blood tests. Most test results will be available the same day. Women who need follow-up tests or treatment will be scheduled for that care by the partnering health systems, Wellmont Health System and Mountain States Alliance, at no cost.

In addition, women will be provided breakfast and lunch donated by an area grocer, and will be offered wellness education about nutrition, exercise, diabetes and smoking cessation.

The program is led by pathologists who are members of the College of American Pathologists and involves family medicine physicians, gynecologists, radiologists, surgeons including Roger Emory, M.D. (S ’94), pathologists and pathology residents from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, mammogram technicians and cytotechnologists from across Virginia.

The southwestern Virginia event is a partnership with the College of American Pathologists Foundation, Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System. The health systems will have personnel on hand to discuss nutrition, physical activity, tobacco cessation and diabetes. Children who accompany their mothers to the event will receive backpacks with school supplies and be invited to participate in an education programs that day.

“We’re excited to bring this lifesaving care to the women of the Appalachian mountains,” says Dr. Emory, a board member of the College of American Pathologists Foundation. “Women here are three times more likely to die from cervical cancer and four times more likely to present with stage 4 breast cancer than anywhere else in the U.S.

“To remove as many of the barriers to care as possible, See, Test & Treat is based on a ‘Mayo Clinic type of experience,’ with all of the testing, exams and diagnosis completed in the same day.”

Since its inception, See, Test & Treat has screened more than 3,000 medically underserved women across the country and provided them and the family and friends who accompany them face-to-face contact with volunteer providers and volunteers from the community, and patient education to promote health literacy.

Dr. Emory is a gastrointestinal pathologist and anatomic and clinical pathologist at Peninsula Pathology Associates at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, Virginia. She also is a board member of the Mayo Clinic Alumni Association.