By By MARCIA STEFFENS / Cassopolis Vigilant
CASSOPOLIS - A 1983 Ross Beatty graduate has returned to her native Cassopolis to seek volunteers for her graduate study program.
Carole Derucki, received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Nazareth College in Kalamazoo Michigan in 1987. She has practiced Nephrology and Adult Intensive Care Nursing in the past and is currently employed at a MRI Center as a Certified Radiological Nurse.
Her husband Jim teaches in the Edwardsburg School District, where their children also attend school.
Breast cancer has personal significance to Carole, as her mother and mother-in-law are both breast cancer survivors who lived in Cass County during their diagnoses and treatment. She is researching breast cancer screening to assist those in Cass County.
She is a candidate for graduation in December from Valparaiso University as an adult Clinical Nurse Specialist and plans to complete the Family Nurse Practitioner Certificate next May.
Her graduate study is of the Relationship Between Rural Women's Health Beliefs about Mammography and Health Care Reimbursement.
Breast cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in women who reside in the United States, she said.
The purpose of her initial breast cancer screening study in Cass County is to determine if there is a difference in the perceived benefits and barriers of mammography among women in rural southwest Michigan ages 40-60, who have different types of healthcare reimbursement.
Women in that age group can pick up applications to participate in the study at either Borgess Lee Memorial Medical Group in Dowagiac at the Front Street Office and in Cassopolis at the office at 117 South Broadway.
They merely have to answer a few questions.
She hopes to discover some insight into why women may choose to have or not to have mammography in Cass County.
The research does show that barriers and benefits to mammography can be impacted by outside factors such as perceived threat and personal contact with breast cancer.
Although breast cancer screening guidelines have changed repeatedly throughout the past 25 years, mammography is still the best definitive exam in postmenopausal women.
Her research coincides with October's health theme of Breast Cancer Screening and Mammography.
You can contact Derucki by e-mail at JCDERUCKI@aol.com, or leave her a message at (269) 684-6182.