SANDY GALBREATH, medical administrative assistant

“It’s amazing what you can get done if you can just get past your fear and do it.”

Sandy Galbreath (née Kamphaus) could be talking about battling cancer, but in fact she’s talking about her first couple of days working at Carle, when the scale and scope of her new position felt more than a little intimidating.

But she stuck with it, and her passion for her work has deepened in the 21 years that have passed. In fact, she has become so indispensable to the smooth running of the Mills Breast Cancer Institute that when she took two weeks’ vacation last year, her coworkers discovered a new-found appreciation for just how much Sandy does.

“It’s a lot of work,” she admits, “but I like it. My heart’s in it. I’ve been with the Carle Cancer Center for 21 years, and I can’t imagine working anywhere else.” And if you think 21 years sounds like a long time, tell that to Sandy’s mother—she has been with Carle for 43 years! Sandy even has girlhood memories of picking her mother up from work, right here at Carle.

Sandy’s work extends into all areas of the Clinic’s operations. First and foremost, she acts as the contact person for all patients. “I give new patients a Mills Breast Center Institute magnet for their refrigerator and write my name on it. Then they slap it on their fridge and know to call that number and ask for me, and I get done whatever they need done.”

From requests for prescription refills to questions for physicians, and from scheduling appointments to ensuring that the doctors have copies of all the pertinent information for each patient they see, Sandy handles it all.

But her primary focus is the patient, drawing on reserves of compassion that stem in part from her own family experience with breast cancer. “We have such a great group of employees,” she says with a smile. “We as a group try to make every patient feel as comfortable as possible when they come through here.”