Thursday night, women from all around the Region came together for Methodist Hospital’s Healthy Night out with the Girls at the hospital’s Breast Care Center in Merrillville.
When the center was founded, its primary focus was breast care and cancer detection, but quickly realized that breast cancer is only one of many ailments and illnesses women suffer from in the area. Now, the group has seminars ranging from bone health to heart care. They hold these free to the public seminars quarterly; at this event, they were covering the different kinds of pains women experience.
Jennifer Sanders, Manager of the Breast Care Center at Methodist Hospitals said, “Knowledge is power, and if you have that knowledge, and if you have that power then you can have that control over your health.”
The goal of the seminars is to get women in the region to come out, get mammograms, and other screenings for general health. They offer chair and hand massages, free refreshments, and a drawing for gift bags. It’s all about bringing women in to the center for a variety of different topics and introducing women to the breast cancer center in a more relaxed and calm environment.
Women from the Paul Mitchell Beauty School provided hand massages to guests while Kauffman Chiropractic provided chair messages while everyone waited for the seminar to begin.
Dr. Tarek Shahbandar, a pain specialist, was the keynote speaker of the night. He educated the group on women's pain and discussed the importance for women to speak up about their pain, all while making sure their voices are being heard.
The specialist mentioned that numerous studies have shown that physicians do not take the time to listen to women’s struggles and pain. He urged every women in attendence to not be shy about their pain and make sure they are heard.
Dr. Shahbandar said, “You have to be your own advocate; you have to make sure they [the physician] are listening.”
Patricia Ward was one of many women attending the seminar Thursday night. She attended the event for the first time to learn more about her health and about all of the services the Region has to offer to women who need them. She is eager to return to more events and to let others know about the importance of attending events that have so much knowledge to give.
“Knowledge is important; they give you a lot of good information,” she said. “I learned something today that’s important about my health.”
To find out about future events visit www.methodisthospitals.org.