WRH clinic offers hope, convenience to breast cancer patients

When Jo Fitz-Gerald discovered a lump in her breast three weeks ago, she immediately went to her nurse practitioner, Ellen Singleton, at The Whit Clinic Fitz-Gerald. Singleton ordered a mammogram and ultrasound. The radiologist, after reading the results, said Jo had to get a needle biopsy right away to determine whether it was cancer and what kind. Calling on family friend Dr. Charles Gross in Tuscaloosa, Jo had the biopsy that afternoon.

But that’s when everything changed from the way patients in Demopolis who are diagnosed with breast cancer usually undergo treatment.

For about six months Whitfield Regional Hospital has been working on a plan to open a Breast Clinic, part of the suite of specialists brought to serve patients in Demopolis to keep them from having to travel an hour or more for treatment.

“Our goal is to try and keep people here locally,” said Doug Brewer, CEO/Administrator of WRH.

So, on Tuesday, June 1, Jo became the first patient in decades to have a mastectomy in a Demopolis hospital and the first surgical patient for the new WRH Breast Clinic.

“I’ve got to be first,” she laughed.

Drs. Joseph Wallace and Joseph Falgout will see and treat patients at WRH every Tuesday. With the opening of the Breast Clinic, all services – from mammograms and other scans, biopsies, surgery, chemotherapy and radiation – can be done in Demopolis.

“We may be a small town in the middle of nowhere,” Jo said, “but when you have the facilities that you can only get in the bigger city,” you can get the exact same treatment, and here she will be cared for “by people who really care about you.”

“My mother will not get better treatment” anywhere else in the country, added her son, Mack Fitz-Gerald.

“This is a continuation of a relationship with Dr. Shelby Sanford with Cancer Care Center of Tuscaloosa” who has been with the hospital for 20 years, explained Brewer. “This is just simply snapping in another piece of our cancer center to better care for our local community.”

Patients who have undergone screening will be able to see the doctor immediately “to try and really confirm what’s going on,” he said. “This is about providing much more timely, better continuum of care for these women.”

Jo met her surgeon, Dr. Wallace, before the procedure. She found him very knowledgeable, she said, “a man dedicated to his profession.”

Added her son, he and Dr. Falgout are “two of the top-rated breast surgeons.”

Both doctors traveled to WRH on Tuesday for the first day of the clinic, and, added Dr. Wallace, it was good to have a second set of hands for the first surgical procedure that went very well.

The two men, who have known each other since first grade, will alternate Tuesdays at WRH. In addition to Jo’s surgery, the pair saw four other patients their first day, including one of Dr. Falgout’s clients who had an appointment for a follow-up — one she didn’t have to make in Tuscaloosa.

“It was a good day,” said Dr. Wallace of their initial trip to Demopolis, “and we’re excited about the privilege of being here. The opportunity arose to provide services here and we’re both grateful and excited about the opportunity,” he added.

Dr. Falgout said breast surgery has been a large part of his practice for the 33 years he has been a general surgeon. “Now I have the opportunity to spend much more designated time doing that as opposed to the full range of general surgery.”

“People should be very, very proud of what we have here,” Jo continued.  “I guarantee you could look all over the whole country and not find another small hospital like us and a small rural community that can offer what the hospital does.”

Such specialty clinics help those who haven’t the money or the means to travel to Tuscaloosa or Birmingham for treatment.

“We have a population that cannot afford to go out of town, or if they do, no one can stay with them,” said Mack Fitz-Gerald.

He also lauds the hospital for its practically non-existent infection rate, one of the lowest in the nation.

The recent expansion of services is tied to the property tax hike voted in by Marengo County voters in December 2019.

“Everybody who voted yes in that tax election has my deepest appreciation,” Jo said. “Without them doing that, I would be facing a whole different ball game.”

“It’s good to see all the things that are being updated, and I have nothing but praise for the administration and what they’re doing to revitalize this place,” said Dr. Wallace.

Jo, 83, considers herself lucky. If she had to get breast cancer, she got the right one. It’s going to be reactive to every kind of chemotherapy.

Her son Mack joked with her, “Don’t buy any lottery tickets or go gambling because you used up all your luck.”

Jo opted not to have radiation treatments, but she will get her chemotherapy in the WRH Cancer Clinic.

She and long-time Demopolis physician Dr. Maurice Fitz-Gerald have been married 65 years and have lived in Demopolis for 56 of them, raising nine children.

“Demopolis has come a long way since we moved here,” she said.

“I’ve never let anything get me down before, and I’m not going to let this get me down. I’ve still got places to go and things to do,” she stressed.

“If I said I’m not scared, everybody would know I’d be lying,” but she has the “utmost faith” in the surgeons and staff of the hospital, in God and in the patron saint of mothers, St. Gerard. “Faith is what holds me together.”