Whether it’s happened to you or a loved one, being diagnosed with breast cancer can be overwhelming.

“There are so many factors that go into breast cancer,” explains Dr. Lea Blackwell. She is the only female breast surgeon in Lee County. She just finished a surgical oncology fellowship specifically designed to help patients deal with the diagnosis.

“As a surgeon, you are sort of the home base for the patient and really the person that initiates the care and help guides the patient through other modalities of treatment,” says Dr. Blackwell. That includes all phases – the first to the last. “Helping with the plastic surgery and the reconstruction and going down to pathology and looking at slides, seeing how the pathologists look at the breast tissue, sitting with the radiologists, reading mammograms with the radiologist, recognizing how the radiation oncologists develop their treatment protocols, talking with the physicist that planned radiation oncology protocols,“ outlines Dr. Blackwell.

She not only consults with the various tiers of medical professionals, she helps the patient along as well. She says with so many physicians involved in breast cancer care, it can be easy for a patient to get confused. “There’s people involved all over the medical spectrum: you have pathologists, radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, surgeons and plastic surgeons,” she adds.

As more is learned about breast cancer, more physicians like Dr. Blackwell are adopting this form of combined care. It’s their hope that this will assist patients and loved ones through the treatment process easier.