I am delighted to be on staff at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. After a decade in private general surgical practice, where I treated many women with breast cancer, I accepted an invitation to join Roswell exclusively in 1999. I felt it gave me an opportunity to do two things that are important to me: develop long-term relationships with my patients, and help them by surgically treating breast cancer. Being at an institute which has a multi-disciplinary approach to cancer, emphasizes state-of-the-art treatment, and offers many resources immediately available to my patients was especially important to me. Also, I like that Roswell gives my patients access to research protocols. As a Board-certified surgeon, I feel it’s important to stay current on the new and effective treatments available to treat breast diseases. I have written chapters in surgical textbooks, and published in scientific journals, as I do my share to contribute to the body of medical knowledge.
When not in the hospital, my husband Andy (a spine surgeon, medical inventor, and a team doctor for the Buffalo Bills) and I enjoy time with our six children, currently aged 16-30. We both heed the call of civic duty, and I am active on several local non-profit boards, including the University of Buffalo and the Albright Knox Art Gallery. My husband and I travel to Africa for medical mission work, and have brought a number of children from abroad here for much-needed surgery they couldn’t get in their home countries. I consider it a privilege to care for patients, and believe strongly that the doctor patient relationship should be one based on mutual respect, openness and honesty.
