State-of-the-art imaging close to home

Wellness Wednesday is sponsored by Intermountain Health

Imagine modern medicine without imaging – X-rays, MRI’s, CT scans, mammography. So much diagnosis and treatment depend on these expensive and specialized machines. But what happens when you live in an area outside of the Wasatch Front?

“I have two little boys, and that means I’ve had some hospital visits. And guess what? I’ll have a whole bunch more by the time they get grown.”

Colby Mower grew up in Fairview and he recently moved home with his family.

“So, my father farms, and the boys love to go out with their Papa to the farm. Tractors, cows, 4-wheelers with helmets.”

But Mower and his wife had to do some research before returning to Utah.

“Back in 2020 I was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer.”

Mower was diagnosed at Duke University and moved to New Jersey where he got treatment at the world-renowned Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

The treatment has been successful, but…

“Your mental state after being diagnosed, you’re constantly thinking about what if it came back? How am I going to be monitored? So, it was really reassuring that not only could I get the treatment here in Utah through IHC, but I could do it locally,” said Mower.

Every six months, Mower takes the short drive from Fairview to Mt. Pleasant, to Brian Osborne’s imaging department at Sanpete Valley Hospital.

Osborne said, “For quite a few years it was something you’d have to travel into Utah County for.”

Patients used to travel three hours round-trip for imaging that is now right next door.

From the DEXA scan to measure bone density to the screening mammography machine and the ultrasound room – all of the equipment is the newest technology.

Patients needing follow up have experts available to them every week.

“Those that have had a finding on a screening mammogram can come back on a Monday. They get a diagnostic mammogram and a potential ultrasound across the hall, and if needed, a biopsy on site,” said Osborne.

Next door to the emergency room you’ll find the X-Ray room, with the latest technology installed less than a year ago.

Right next door to that, you’ll see the new CT scanner, and it gets a lot of use.

“With recreation around here year-round, snowmobiling in the winter, ATVs and side-by-sides in the summer, we deal with a lot of trauma,” said Osborne.

In Osborne’s 23 years at Sanpete Valley Hospital, he’s had MRI imaging available in the trailer outside. Now, it’s in house, and that house is in a much bigger medical neighborhood.

“Anything I do here is immediately accessible to the surgeons and trauma docs in any Intermountain facility,” said Osborne.

“I know a majority of the community and it’s very rewarding here and how grateful they are for the services we do provide,” said Osborne.