FREEPORT, Ill. (WTVO) — The Women in Science club at Highland Community College held a “Breast Cancer Detection and Prevention Talk.”

Juliet Moderow is a biology instructor at Highland. She also advises the Women in Science club, which aims to highlight females and gender minorities in the field. The club also hopes to grow the number of women interested in pursuing a science and medical career.

“For me personally, I never thought about it until an actual friend or family member got it. And then you realize it is closer to home and we should educate more people about it,” Moderow said. “I think it’s important that students don’t feel invincible and realize they need to practice their own self-care and health and learn and learn about how to how painless the screening process can be to protect themselves from cancer.”

Those who attended learned from people in the field. They went over equipment, when to get tested, and how to work with patients.

“Our role in the mammography world, kind of our day-to-day duties and to just kind of get the next generation encouraged and excited about it,” said Bethany Harvey a mammography Technologist at Highland Community College.

“I didn’t know that they’re moving the breast screening to 40. And so I just think about like my mom, like, I don’t know when she started getting screened and everything. That was something that I kind of took away and thought was interesting,” said Kaitlyn Meyerhofer a sophomore at Highland Community College.

Advisors noted the importance of Breast Cancer Awareness. They said that while October emphasizes it, everything that was discussed should be reinforced all year round.

“Yeah, it’s definitely really important, as they said today, that you could you’re supposed to get screened every other year, but even things can change in that short amount of time,” Myerhofer said. “So making sure you’re on top of your screenings is definitely really important.”

“Specifically for breast health to stress the fact that we need to come in and get our screening mammograms done,” said Harvey. “To see your doctor, if you have any issues and to just kind of educate them.”