When breast cancer is found early and treated appropriately, women have a five-year survival rate of 98% to 100%. Unfortunately, many women face financial, environmental and other barriers that prevent or discourage access to care.

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Through a new mobile mammography bus, made possible through philanthropic partnership with the Women’s Council, Novant Health Forsyth Medical Center Foundation is able to bring high-tech cancer screening directly into historically underserved Forsyth County communities, ensuring more women have access to this essential and lifesaving healthcare. Since 2019 we’ve been able to provide approximately 10,513 women in the Greater Winston-Salem Market area access to preventative care screenings aboard the Mobile Mammography Bus.

"I loved her from that first day. I know she has a million patients, but I couldn't tell. She treated me as if I was her only one."

– Karen Adams
Patient at Novant Health on her Novant Health cancer navigator, Vicki Davidson

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A cancer diagnosis can be challenging and overwhelming. Factors such as economic stability, physical environment, and access to education, a support network and food also known as Social determinants of health, may further contribute to poor health outcomes.

Navigators guide and support patients; providing education on diagnosis, offering emotional support, coordinating across care providers, scheduling clinical appointments and connecting them with community resources.

“Usually, first-in-human phase 1 trials are only possible at academic medical centers — but thanks in large part to the Donahue family’s gift to Novant Health Foundation, we’re able to offer leading-edge clinical trials close to home.”

– Frank Chen, MD
 Clinical Physician Director of Novant Health Cancer Institute

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Novant Health Cancer Institute in 2021 treated its first patient with a new drug being tested on non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the Donahue Developmental Therapeutics Unit in Winston-Salem.

Thanks to clinical research investments made by Novant Health and philanthropy by Dan and Kay Donahue, a Novant Health patient, whose lymphoma was no longer responding to chemotherapy, was the first in the world to receive an immunotherapy drug as part of a first-in-human phase I clinical trial.

"Just as philanthropy created the first health system over 200 years ago, philanthropy drives our excellence in care here at Novant Health. Philanthropy is the 'love of humankind'. For that, we are grateful."

– Ann Caulkins
Senior Vice President of Novant Health, President of Novant Health Foundation

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Construction is underway on a new stand-alone and comprehensive breast health center at Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center, with the goal of ensuring patients in and around Charlotte have equitable access to breast health services.

The center will have the latest in technology designed to detect cancer at its earliest and most treatable stages as well as a more convenient drop-off and pickup area.

The center is named after Agnes Binder Weisiger, who was born in 1941 and started her first job at Presbyterian Medical Center as a candy striper and went on to serve as a family nurse practitioner for nearly 30 years. Weisiger survived her own battle with breast cancer at the Presbyterian Medical Center in 2011.