Advancing Breast Exam Standards and Practices Since 1974
The MammaCare Method® is the recognized standard for
performing and teaching clinical and personal breast examination
Certifications
Certification courses provide in-depth training to improve examination and teaching skills and to increase clinician confidence. Certification is offered to nurses, physicians, radiologic technologists and health educators in the United States and Germany.
Continuing Education
The MammaCare online continuing education (CE) course introduces the standards of practice for proficient clinical breast examination (CBE) and personal breast examination. The course contains instructional videos that guide hands through essential palpation exercises and didactic learning modules.
University Students
This site is dedicated to US universities participating in the MammaCare / National Science Foundation Clinical Breast Exam Competency Network (CBECN). The course modules include both online tutorials and training practice on MammaCare CBE simulators that teach and validate palpation skills.
Breast Exam Training Technology
Critical breast exam skills are learned on tactually accurate breast models and breast exam simulators that teach the difference between suspicious masses and normal nodular breast tissue so that clinicians and women can perform more effective breast exams without false positive alarms.
MammaCare Affiliates
MammaCare® Affiliates are organizations that have a MammaCare certified staff member. Affiliates may identify their status using the MammaCare Affiliate logo.
Mission
MammaCare’s mission is to train every hand that examines a woman, including her own.
MammaCare®, the recognized quality-standard for clinical and personal breast exams, was developed with the support of the National Cancer Institute, the National Science Foundation and scientists worldwide.
MammaCare trains the sense of touch to detect suspicious breast tumors at the earliest stage while reducing false alarms. Medical research now confirms that fingers discover a large proportion of breast cancers. MammaCare teaches fingers what to feel for.
Latest News & Research
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Breast Cancer Screening: The Controversy and the Evidence
On February 11, 2014 the world’s scientific and medical communities learned that trained hands find the same number of breast cancers as do mammograms. For 25 years the breasts of 89,000 Canadian women were examined either by radiologists using mammograms or by nurses trained to perform skilled clinical (manual) breast exams. Women in the study […]
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Breast Self-Exams: Women Have “Saved Their Own Lives”
Originally published on 5 Oct. 2015 in The Hartford Courant by Deborah Percival. When it comes to detecting breast cancer, no test is 100 percent reliable. Mammograms miss approximately 16 percent of breast cancers, according to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Independent studies on the efficacy of thermography report that it misses roughly 10 percent […]
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MammaCare Medical Mission for the Women of Uganda
The epidemic of breast cancer became a death sentence for many women in Uganda according to a series of revealing reports. Epidemics expand in the absence of knowledge and training and Ugandan women desperately needed both. They needed a way to identify and report the signs of early breast cancer, a way that could be […]
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Bringing MammaCare to Nigeria – Balancing Research and Community Needs
When education and opportunity intersect, young people often take their skills to big cities where access to modern technology and amenities makes life easier. Not Stella Oluwabukola. Pursuing her Ph.D. at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, Stella knew her calling was to bring her education back to the rural communities that needed her skills the […]
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Breast Exams Performed By The Hands Of Nurses And Doctors About To Get Better
National Science Foundation grant establishes Clinical Breast Exam Competency Network April 7, 2015 – GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Breast exams are about to get better because the National Science Foundation awarded MammaCare a Phase llB project grant. The grant establishes a “Clinical Breast Exam Competency Network” (CBECN) to document the palpation skills of clinical students on […]
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Qlik Honors MammaCare for Advancing Women’s Health
Early detection of breast cancer is in the hands of clinicians and women. In late 2013, the World Health Organization reported a sharp rise in breast cancer. The following excerpt is from the report: “In 2012, 1.7 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer…since 2008 estimates, breast cancer incidence has increased by more than 20%, […]
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Best-Practice BSE at Mercy Suburban Hospital
Polly Sacco Ezzell, BSN, RN, OCN offers gold-standard breast self-exam (BSE) instruction at Mercy Suburban Hospital’s Breast Center. Her program is the only one of its kind in the region, training women individually to perform the scientifically validated technique for BSE. Ezzell trains women in the MammaCare Method, which uses tactually accurate breast models to […]
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Researchers Enlist Women to Learn How Breast Cancer is First Detected
Gainesville, Florida, 15 October 2014: Mary Ann Mehn, Ph.D., MammaCare Foundation researcher, believes the experiences results and recommendations of ordinary women can improve the effectiveness and cost of breast cancer screening programs. A body of evidence now confirms that breast cancer is likely to be discovered by women themselves or by the hands of their […]
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MammaCare Graduates Celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Join MammaCare in recognizing Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October! Programs around the country are providing expanded screening and outreach services to women in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. While most women are aware that screening is an important part of their health care routine, heightened coverage during the month of October serves as […]
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What We Can Learn From A Man With A Mammogram
B. D. Colen shares an exceptional narrative about discovering a breast lump and getting a mammogram on Huffington Post. I encourage you to read his article, and see if you agree with his conclusion. Frankly, I’d be willing to bet that if one man in nine developed breast cancer, the recommendation would be to do weekly breast […]
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Why So Much Confusion About Breast Self-Exams?
Women everywhere are confused by the conflicting messages they receive about breast self-examination (BSE). A few large private and public agencies vacillate in their recommendations. The media often add to the confusion by uncritically repeating official recommendations that seem to cast doubt on the value of BSE. Yet the fact remains that a large proportion of breast […]
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What Does Breast Cancer Feel Like?
Feeling a lump is the first symptom of breast cancer for many women but as explained further below, breast tissue is naturally lumpy and most lumps are normal. The most common question we are asked is, “What does breast cancer feel like?” The National Cancer Institute (NCI) supported development of standards for a breast simulation model, […]
