Dr. Jeannine M. Brant is an oncology clinical nurse specialist, pain consultant, and nurse scientist for the Billings Clinic in Montana. Dr. Brant’s repertoire blends her clinical expertise in pain and symptom management with her program of research that includes improving patient symptoms and focusing on nursing-sensitive indicators that lead to quality nursing and interdisciplinary care.
In 1990, Dr. Brant developed the Women Reaching for Wellness Program, an American Indian outreach education program, on seven Indian reservations in Montana and one in Wyoming focused on cancer prevention in American Indian women. When the project began, American Indians were reluctant to discuss cancer for fear they would get the disease. Over a 15-year period, an award-winning film called “Standing Strong Against the Cancer Enemy” was produced (more than 400 copies distributed nationwide), cancer prevention and education were offered to more than 20,000 women per year, and a screening program was added through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Initially only five women received mammograms per year and the five-year breast cancer survival rate was approximately 65 percent. The program enrolled more than 200 women per year for mammograms when screening started and the breast cancer survival rates have increased.