2021 Neighborhood Heroes
December 15, 2021
During her time traveling Dr. Patricia Gordon noticed how many women were dying from cervical cancer in Dakar, Senegal. Gordon said “There are 350,000 women dying a painful, undignified death globally. And it's almost 100% preventable.” During their trip in their downtime the group arranged to provide cervical cancer screenings for women in a remote and hard-hit area of Senegal. Gordan came prepared because of her knowledge that cervical cancer was the leading cause of cancer deaths among women in the developing world. “I came prepared with vaginal speculums and all sorts of supplies to screen women” she said. They could save 20-30 lives within a day depending on the number of women they screen and that it was incredibly rewarding for her. At the end of that trip, the team left a suitcase full of supplies with the trained nurses so they could take them to underserved clinics. The non-profit has screened more than 150,000 women and treated more than 8,600 to date.