Who knew that setting up a breast cancer screening program for corrections could be such a big deal?  Fortunately, I don’t have to deal with screening mammograms much in my jails.  But we have been wrestling with this subject for some time in the prison systems I am affiliated with.  And for prisons, setting up an appropriate breast cancer screening program is indeed a “Big Deal” with both medical and legal implications.

It doesn’t help that this is quite a controversial subject. In fact, in the 30 years that I have been practicing medicine, the fight over the appropriate intervals for breast cancer screening has been the most strident medical controversy that I remember. This controversy was born in 2009 when the US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) released its recommendations for mammogram breast cancer screening. Continue reading →