Fletcher Allen Breast Care Center Locations 

Preparation and During the Visit	The Procedure Rooms	Nurse Practitioners
Mammogram multidisciplinary review	Nurse Case Managers	Clinical Research
Familial Cancer Program

Preparation and During the Visit:

Much work is accomplished before a patient has their first visit at the Breast Care Center. As much information as possible is obtained about the person so that their visit can be as meaningful and thorough as possible. This includes obtaining important Xray films such as mammograms, important laboratory and pathology reports, and doctors office notes. The purpose of the visit is carefully evaluated ahead of time so that the appropriate doctors and support staff are assigned to initiate care for that person. It takes a lot of time and effort rounding up this information but it is important to make sure that the visits are as complete as possible.  It is important to understand how much stress a patient can be under during the time of his/her visit. The staff and nurses are dedicated to providing a supportive and comforting environment during the visit. This expert group of people all go to great lengths to insure that the visit is caring, performed with respect for individual needs including privacy, and that it is a clean, safe, and comfortable visit. Last minute details, for example, obtaining reports for outside institutions, are rapidly obtained to facilitate the visit.  

 Check in and check out staff: Christine, Beth, Tina and Linda

Mammogram multidisciplinary review:

Sometimes a patient can have a normal physical exam, but a finding is discovered on a mammogram.  Breast dedicated radiologists and surgeons review abnormal imaging and make recommendations for follow-up.  Patients with mammographic abnormalities benefit from a radiologist/surgeon review here at Fletcher Allen.  This can streamline the care of patients refered here for care or biopsy.  

The Procedure Room:

Surgery may be performed in either the Breast Care Center's procedure rooms or in the Surgery and Outpatient Procedures area on Level 3 of the Ambulatory Care Center.  The rooms are supported by dedicated operating room nursing personnel. Availability of this resource increases the ability of our team of surgeons to offer surgical procedures and in an environment that is designed to minimize the stress associated with such procedures.

Christine handles all of our Procedure Room scheduling.

Familial Cancer Program:

Visit Familial Cancer Program on the web (Vermont Cancer Center)  

Nurse Case Managers:

All patients with breast cancer are assigned a nurse case manager. The case manager is a registered nurse that specializes in the management of patients with breast cancer. The involvement of the case manager begins even before arrival of a patient with newly diagnosed breast cancer by ensuring that all of the key information is obtained and that consults are arranged with the appropriate doctors. The case manager helps to coordinate all aspects of care from initial visits through post-operative care. The case manager helps to provide a very real face and a voice to the Breast Care Center by providing open access and communication, education and support.

Nurse Practitioners:

The overall plan of the Breast Care Center as a model system of managing patients with breast problems is to create a team of individual care providers. At each step, the special needs of a patient are matched with an appropriate care provider. The Breast Care Center was one of the first Centers to effectively utilize the important skills provided by Nurse Practitioners that specialize in managing patients with breast problems. They have a wide range of responsibilities that includes the very important role of monitoring patients that have previously been treated for cancer. It is very clear that patients that have developed one cancer are at risk for developing a second new cancer.  This service is provided both for breast cancer patients and for patients with melanoma. 

Clinical Research:

The only way to generate better ways of treating cancer is through research. This is a fundamental goal of the Breast Care Center and is integral to all of our activities. We constantly strive to generate new ideas that will ultimately lead to a better cure rate for treating breast cancer or to make the current treatments even better with less side effects. Conducting clinical research is very complex and not only the science has to be right but the clinical situation has to be right. Every effort is made to offer the most relevant clinical study to patients in the Breast Care Center. 

 www.vermontcancer.org