Search for best Breast Cancer doctor and hospital

ZhaoLan

Diagnosed Breast Cancer Patient searching for best breast cancer doctor and hospital in USA. Can anybody recommend the best breast cancer physician and hospital for this? Thank you very much.

edwards750

Sorry you find yourself a member of our group Zhaolan. This is a great website that offers a lot of helpful advice and encouragement.

As for the best doctor and hospital in the country that will elicit a lot of opinions and preferences. Where do you live?

I live in Tennessee so my recommendation would be the West Clinic in Germantown. It's where I have gone since I was DX almost 5 years ago.

There are great hospitals like the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and the Mayo Clinic that have excellent reputations but as I said there are so many good ones across the country.

I'm sure the ladies who live in your neck of the woods will make recommendations.

Good luck!

Diane

BarredOwl

Hi ZhaoLan:

Breast cancer is usually diagnosed and treated by a team of doctors.

I don't think one can identify a single institution or individual as the "best" in the United States. I recommend you look for a hospital with an excellent reputation and comprehensive breast cancer center, and then research members of their staff.

Some physicians may have more experience treating certain special types of breast cancer, such as invasive lobular carcinoma ("ILC") or inflammatory breast cancer ("IBC"). If you have a more specialized type of cancer, you may wish to post your question in a forum for the specific type of cancer.

If transferring your care to a new hospital following an initial diagnosis elsewhere, you may wish to request a complete second opinion review of all imaging to date (e.g., mammograms, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging ("MRI")), the pathology slides from any biopsy (the actual slides are forwarded for independent review by a pathologist), and treatment recommendations from a breast surgeon, and possibly a radiation oncologist ("RO") and medical oncologist ("MO"). One may then elect to seek treatment at the second opinion institution.

In the United States, some cancer centers are "NCI-designated cancer centers", and these can be good choices:

http://www.cancer.gov/research/nci-role/cancer-centers/find

(Some of the NCI-designated cancer centers are hospital and research centers, others are only research centers.)

Here are some sections about second opinions (See Menu at left for more sections):

http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/second_opinion

Here are some possible ideas from this site that one might consider, including MD Anderson (Houston, Texas), Johns Hopkins (Baltimore, Maryland), Dana Farber (part of "Partners HealthCare" in Boston, Mass.) and others:

http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/second_opinion/where

Best,

BarredOwl

[EDIT: For those living in the US, your medical coverage may limit choice and/or affect coverage (e.g., out-of-network).]