Sarah Conley was a school bus driver just like her mother. She would have been happy driving children to school the rest of her life, but today she finds herself on a road less travelled.
Sarah is now a Mercy Health radiologic technologist and a commercial drivers’ license (CDL) holder. With these two qualifications, she can drive the Mercy Health – Springfield’s Mobile Mammography coach to its community destinations and also screen patients for breast cancer inside.
In her role and as technologist in the mammography department, Sarah sees first-hand that detecting and treating breast cancer early saves lives. In fact, early in her career, her path helped save her mother’s life.
Sarah encouraged her mother to have a mammogram after her mom went more than 10 years with no screenings. That screening showed that Sarah’s mother had breast cancer. After treatment that included a lumpectomy, radiation and chemotherapy, her mother is cancer free today.
“The Lord was working on our side back then,” says Sarah.
At 16 years old, Sarah thought she might like to become a nurse. She took college classes while still attending high school and worked as a nursing assistant. While she was drawn to the medical field, the experience helped her learn what she didn’t want to do.
Following her marriage, Sarah found herself driving a school bus, a job that made her available to her children. She drove that bus for six years before deciding to revisit a career in health care.
Sarah attended community college to earn an associate degree in radiologic technology. After graduating in December 2010, she began working for her current supervisor, Kathy McCarthy, at another hospital system. Over the years, she has added to her knowledge by learning how to do bone density scans (Dexa scans) and completing the 40-hour course to learn how to do mammograms.
Today, Sarah is grateful to be able to use both her CDL and her mammography skills on the Mercy Health mobile mammography coach that travels throughout the Greater Springfield region. She drives the coach to the Mercy Health – Dayton Springfield Emergency Center every Wednesday and screens patients for breast cancer. She also travels to other mobile screening locations and works at Mercy Health’s Imaging Center.
Sarah helps our ministry efficiently serve thousands of women who live and work in the communities of Enon, OH, Fairborn, OH and Springfield, OH. Together with the imaging team, she is making a real difference in helping women benefit from the early detection of breast cancer.
Learn more about breast cancer and the breast cancer screening services we offer at Mercy Health.
