January 07, 2008

Turlock - "Annual breast screening saves lives and the earlier you detect breast cancer, the better are your chances for a disease-free survival," said new Ruby E. Bergman Women's Center's Medical Director and Radiologist Walter Maynard, MD.  "I want to bring the most advanced, clinically proven modalities used in breast cancer detection to Emanuel Medical Center. I want to use them in a patient-friendly environment that is responsive to the needs of both the patient and her physician.

Emanuel is expanding the Ruby E. Bergman Women's Center and is building a 6,000 square foot, second-floor space in Emanuel Medical Plaza located on Tuolumne Road in Turlock. There it will complement the services of the Stanford Emanuel Radiation Oncology Center and Emanuel's Cancer Services.

As the new medical director and breast imaging specialist for the Ruby E. Bergman Women's Center, Dr. Maynard is focused on developing his vision of a world-class women's imaging center for early breast cancer detection and treatment evaluation. Plans are underway for future collaboration with a major academic university that has proven leadership in the area of breast imaging. Several national leaders in breast imaging will aid Dr. Maynard in his effort to transform the Ruby E. Bergman Women's Center into a center of excellence.

"We need to increase annual screening rates," Dr. Maynard said. "California DHS statistics for 2004 show that many women are failing to get an annual mammogram - just 57% of women surveyed had a mammogram within one year. The rate increased to 72% over two years."

Dr. Maynard plans to track screening statistics at the center closely. His two-year goal is to achieve at least an 80% annual screening rate for all patients who are screened at the facility.

Also he and his staff plan to institute an outreach program to work with ERs, urgent care groups, churches, and national and community service organizations to reach uninsured and underinsured women who are failing to get a yearly screening mammogram.  In the future he hopes to create remote screening sites to facilitate screening.  His passion for the effort is personal as well as professional. His wife, Lillian, is a breast cancer survivor.

"It will take up to a year to design, build out, staff and equip the new center," Dr. Maynard explained. The hospital administrators are to be applauded for their decision not to wait until the new facility is built, but to install the digital mammography and the sterotactic biopsy equipment in the present location.  Physicians will also have the added ability to remotely view the mammographic and ultrasound images wherever they have connectivity to the hospital's PACS."

In his first week here, Dr. Maynard immediately expanded the Women's Center's services to include pre-operative wire localizations, diagnostic mammogram, high resolution targeted breast ultrasounds and ultrasound guided vacuum assisted breast biopsies. Breast MRI with Computer Aided Detection and sterotactic biopsies of calcifications will be available in the near future.

Dr. Maynard earned an MD at Meharry Medical College in Nashville and interned at UCLA Affiliated Hospital in Los Angeles. He completed his radiology residency and a nuclear medicine fellowship at Martin Luther King, Jr., General Hospital, in Los Angeles. He is certified by the American Board of Radiology and the American Board of Nuclear Medicine. Prior to coming to Emanuel he was the breast imaging specialist at several major institutions in Los Angeles. His publications have appeared in the American Journal of Radiology and American Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

Emanuel Medical Center's Ruby E. Bergman Women's Center is currently located near the hospital at 2121 Colorado Ave in Turlock. Call 209.664.5168 for an appointment.