Doctors at Phoebe Putney Hospital say you can get the same quality cancer treatment in Albany as you can in a larger city.
Phoebe's Cancer Center is celebrating a prestigious designation by the American College of Radiology as a Breast Imaging Center of Excellence.
Patricia Swain not only works in Phoebe's Cancer Center, but has been a patient there as well.
"Pretty scary, my mother died of breast cancer, so when I found out that I had breast cancer, it shook me out of my boots," says Patricia Swain, Cancer Center Outreach Programs Coordinator/ Cancer Survivor.
She says she received the same first class care 11 years ago, that Phoebe offers today.
"I think it is an awesome thing, that we continue to raise the bar, and continue to try to give quality care to everybody here in the community,"says Swain.
And she says people in Southwest Georgia don't have to leave our area for that quality care.
"They can get the same excellent care here than they would traveling to an Emory, or Mayo Clinic or an MD Anderson or a Moffitt Cancer Center," says Dr. Robert Krywicki, Phoebe Cancer Center Medical Director.
That means they can stay with their families during treatment and still have the best resources available.
"They really need that family support, and they can have that here rather than being alone in a strange city," says Krywicki.
Another beneficial aspect of the cancer center is that everything is provided under one roof.
"During a very stressful time for the patient, to be able to see all of the doctors they have to see at once, and get a plan put together, and moving forward, rather than sometimes leading to delays where you have to be traveling," says Krywicki.
Medical oncology, Hematology, and radiation oncology are all within footsteps of each other.
"When you go to referral, you are typically in the same vicinity or the same family, their records are together, they can check things out and it makes the whole experience smooth," says David Campbell, Phoebe Cancer Patient.
An experience that Swain now knows first hand.
"It gave me the opportunity for me to tell women what I know, not what I read, or what other patients had told me they experience or what it was supposed to be like, I knew from experience what it was like," says Swain.
And from her experience, she continues to help patients get, what is now the best quality care South Georgia can offer.
Phoebe also recently earned national accreditation by the American College of surgeons and the breast cancer program was named a Center of Excellence by the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers.
