In honor of Ava Pettiford
Ava Pettiford sees no reason to be shy; she tells all she can about the need to be screened for certain kinds of cancer. Mostly, she goes to churches to let the men know that UNC offers free prostate cancer screenings every September.
“I took it upon myself to do this because when we had these screenings in the past there were not a lot of African American men,” she says. “So I thought by announcing it at local churches, I could reach a lot of people.”
And that she has. There’s little doubt her work has saved lives.
Ava does this sort of outreach above and beyond her day job as program coordinator in oncology, for which she earned a Clinical Service Excellence Award in 2008. She has the job of making sure a patient’s entire course of care is appropriately coordinated. It’s a serious job that she says can be all-consuming, which is why she tries to lighten things up. “I like to have fun and I do cut up a lot,” she says. “I’m kind of known for that.” And the patients do remember her. “One patient still calls me, just to check in,” she says. “And I’ll check in with her. Sometimes, we form long-term friendships with patients”