Team SCP Radiology walked, jogged and cycled more than 2 000 km in the month of October – all in the name of charity and breast cancer awareness.

A group of around 20 staff members entered this year’s Imagine Challenge and spent October pursuing their personal fitness goals. The Imagine Challenge is a month-long virtual fitness and fundraising initiative by the ILoveBoobies breast cancer charity, which encourages participants to complete challenges like at least 42,2km of walking or running, 500km of cycling, or 24 hours in the gym. When, where and with whom they do it, is up to each participant.

The entry fees and merchandise sold from the event will help the charity’s clinical teams continue to do free breast cancer screenings in 2024. Nursing staff at ILoveBoobies have done almost 8 000 screenings since its inception in 2016, and the charity hopes that their biggest annual fundraiser will help them secure at least 1 500 screenings for the coming year.

Their beneficiaries have always been women in communities with limited access to healthcare, where their screenings, as well as education about early detection and breast self-examination, could go a long way in ensuring early breast cancer diagnoses and intervention for women in need.

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The SCP-ILB partnership

SCP Radiology is the official mammography partner for ILoveBoobies, and donates its mammography services to the women who are referred for further diagnosis.

Apart from the fitness, awareness and team-building opportunities which the Imagine Challenge presented to team SCP, it resonated strongly with staff members whose family members and friends had personal experiences with breast cancer. Working for a radiology practice that serves patients with diagnostic and screening mammography on a daily basis, staff are also particularly passionate about the subject of early detection and needed little motivation to support the cause.

“We are thrilled with our staff’s uptake of such a worthy cause and wonderful teambuilding event,” says SCP Clinical Operations Manager Madelein de Wet, who herself completed the running challenge. “Team SCP covered the full range of fitness goals: from total newbies who just wanted to do a short walk every day to a club runner who completed 224 km in total. We also had a young runner whose mother celebrated 10 years in remission this year, and colleagues who took up a new activity in honour of friends who had been diagnosed.

“The team loved it and we hope to come back in even stronger force next year.”

Breast cancer awareness at work

Back at work, SCP staff have once again done their part in sharing the early detection message.

• Download SCP’s information booklet on mammography.
• Listen to Dr Salomine Theron’s radio interview on the importance of breast cancer screening.
• Read more about the reasons why women are reluctant to go for annual mammograms (and doctors’ answers to their concerns).
• See our Breast Cancer Awareness Month staff photos below.

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