Oncologist at Savoy Medical Center addresses Rotary Club

The Ville Platte Rotary Club welcomed medical oncologist at Savoy Medical Center Dr. Tanyanika Phillips at its weekly meeting on April 6, at Main Street Pizza. Phillips was the guest of rotarian Nick LeBas.
“It’s been wonderful serving in the tri-parish area being a part of the Savoy family,” she stated. “I lived there since July, and I serve in that capacity along with a nurse practitioner. The both of us are there in totality five days a week. I personally spend two days out the week at Savoy and the other two days I spend in Alexandria.”
“I came here 40-pounds ago, and I was a vegan,” she continued. “And everybody asked me ‘what religion is that,’ and I was like I changed my diet. It’s anti-cancer and all of this, and they were like ‘here’s some boudin, baby.’”
Williams is a native of New Orleans and did her post-graduate training at Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt Universities. She told the audience how grateful she is to be at Savoy where the community is investing in the hospital.
“I’ve been excited to be a part of the family there, but more importantly I’ve been touched by all the families and patients,” she said. “One of the things that strikes me most about the people in Evangeline and St. Landry Parish and all throughout is that everyone is so willing and so eager to tell you how grateful they are, and as a provider we don’t get to hear that often. And, so, it’s such a wonderful reminder.”
The doctor also informed her audience about several new treatment programs including immunotherapy and educational programs.
“We’re making great strides as a scientific community in terms of treatment and management,” she said. “We now are going beyond chemotherapy to things like immunotherapy which targets to help the immune system fight cancer.”
“One of the things I pride myself with is educating,” she continued. “We wanna let everyone know what’s available to you so that you can make an informed choice.”
Williams concluded her presentation talking about other available treatment programs. “One of the things we would love to get support in is not only survivorship but in prevention,” she said. “It’s very difficult to talk about prevention without having the support of the community. And so as we build and move forward, we certainly want the community’s help with ideas about the ways we can partner for those aspects.”
The Rotary Club also heard from Maggie Ortego, who is the chairperson of the Choices Workshop scheduled for the week of May 8. “For those of you who are not familiar with what Choices is, it’s a program that the Rotary puts on to encourage and promote education, and it’s presented to eighth graders throughout the parish schools.”
In other business, President Peter Strawitz went over other items on the agenda. On Saturday, April 8th from 9:00 till 1:00 workers will be needed to work with the students of Sacred Heart Interact club to clean Heritage Park. Strawitz will ask for volunteers at next Tuesday’s meeting. They will provide lunch and drinks for the students afterwards. Volunteers will need to bring loppers, rakes, shovels and pruning saws.
The club will cook Boston Butt roasts and serve Pulled Pork sandwiches Saturday, April 22nd as part of the Le Grand Hoorah at Chicot State Park. At least five volunteers are needed to help cook and serve.
Strawitz also announced the club made a donation to the Zachary Rotary Club in the amount of $205.00 for its share of the Food Fest at the District 6200 Rotary Convention in Zachary, La.
This week’s meeting came on the heels of the meeting last week on March 28 where Larry Lachney presented guests Lisa Deshotel and Peggy Ritter. Deshotel is the community educator of Elderly Housing Development & Operations Corporation (EHDOC), and Ritter is President of the Resident Council.