“Unidade Móvel III”: week long trip in Mato Grosso

In Brazil, I’m continually pulled back to the amazing work of the Mobile Unit. So far we’ve explored Barretos; we’ve gone around with the Mammography Mobile Units to Monte Azul and Bebedouro; we’ve taken a weekend trip to the glamorous city of Rio de Janeiro; but nothing so far has been quite like our outreach trip this past week with the Mobile Unit to Mato Grosso.

(Mobile Unit team– from left: driver (not part of MU), Nurse Creuza, Claudia coordinator (not part of MU), Dr. Julio, Thiago, Nurse Assistant Leticia, N. A. Lidiane, N. A. Lilian, myself and Jessica)

As I was trying to demonstrate last time, Mato Grosso is a state in the very center of Brazil. It’s also the state that marks the beginning of the Amazonas region. Many of the cities we visited around the state have populations of about 12,000 and are made up of mostly farms and ranchs. Many of these farmers work with the Barretos Cancer Hospitals to coordinate livestock auctions and fundraisers for the cancer hospital, and it’s also these farmers who kindly hosted us and the Mobile Unit team during our stays in the cities of Mato Grosso.

“Everything is tainted with a bit of orange” in Mato Grosso.

The roads in Mato Grosso were mostly dirt roads, so the orange dirt filled the air. The dirt roads also filled our journeys around Mato Grosso with very rocky road trips (and this is why the mammogram machines couldn’t come with this mobile unit). What did come with this Mobile Unit?– a Pap smear room, a digital rectal examination room, a blood / tissue samples storage room, and a surgery room for minor skin cancer surgeries. So all in all, this Mobile Unit covered cervical cancer, prostate cancer and skin cancer screening (plus Heptitis tests using blood collected for prostate specific antigen or PSA analysis).

During our trip, we traveled with the Mobile Unit to four cities– Marcelandia, Analandia, Uniao de Sul and Claudia; and in just one week, our journey was packed with interesting experiences!

To summarize our trip in words, Jessica and I

observed the work of the Mobile Unit team
talked to the local nurses and got feedback on improvements for the E-book
received new suggestions on how to help the mobile unit’s preparations and triages
started implementing ideas to help with the skin cancer triage
ate a lot of really delicious churrasco (Brazilian barbecue)!

And to summarize our trip in pictures, here are a few highlights from each city!

Marcelandia