On display at Intercare’s Benton Harbor Health Center on Thursday was a giant colon. The healthcare provider set up the 32-foot inflated colon to spread awareness about the importance of colonoscopies. Intercare Chief Medical Officer Lisa Fink told us colon health is sometimes overlooked.
“To be honest, not everybody runs to get their colonoscopies,” Fink said. “We understand that, so we’re trying to take a different angle at it and get a little bit of a different perspective.”
The giant inflated colon contained information on conditions a colonoscopy could detect with examples of healthy and unhealthy tissue. Fink says it’s recommended everyone get a colonoscopy at age 45, and then every ten years after that.
“Sometimes they’ll find polyps. Some polyps can turn into cancer, and so they can remove those when they see them. And if they biopsy a lesion that looks like cancer, they can also diagnose cancer.”
Fink said a colonoscopy is the same as any other routine medical test everyone should get. She added colon cancer sometimes doesn’t come with symptoms, so a colonoscopy is the gold standard for detecting trouble. The walkthrough colon exhibit was part of Intercare Community Health Network’s celebration of National Health Center Week.
