What brings you to Mammography?

Louise Miller (far left) and Sarah Jacobs (far right) following a Bootcamp style mammography training at the Doris Sheehan Breast Center in Atlanta, GA

We all have a story. Something that brought us to this profession. Maybe it was a family member: our mom, grandma, sister, friend, coworker, neighbor,  or mentor. Breast Cancer has touched us. In one way or another, this pain-staking disease has crept into our lives and touched some aspects in one way or another. 

We are a sisterhood of mammography technologists, not like any other. We are a different breed. The compassion, empathy, and the desire to comfort set us apart from the rest.  We are the ones our patients trust to provide exceptional care. Here’s the thing though….our patients might not even realize the level of trust they give to us. Our radiologists likely don’t realize it either. They likely don’t realize that we are the ones that determine if that breast cancer is hiding in the depths of the image that they’re reading. Our role should not be discounted.  Louise Miller said it best: “Even the best radiologist in the world can’t diagnose a breast cancer that’s not in the image.” 

Whether our Radiologists realize it or not….we are our patient's front line of defense. For their sake, we are the ones who need to make sure that the images that we provide are more than just “good enough”. We are the ones that need to make sure that the images we provide are better than last year. And we are the ones that need to know exactly what to do, and how to fix the image if it doesn’t display the quality that we strive for.  Let’s stop guessing what we need to do to fix quality. Standardized mammography positioning matters. Our story is our motivation to continue to do better for all those that breast cancer has touched…and all those that it will touch in the future. Our story isn’t finished yet. If we can do better….we should do better.