Dedicated to Women's Health
- Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi, whom Olivia Munn referred to as her “guardian angel” for her support after the actress shared her breast cancer diagnosis, is reflecting on her own journey with breast cancer five years ago.
- The gynecologist and dedicated women’s health advocate, 53, was 48 years old when some atypical cells showed up on a routine mammogram. Name-called for choosing to have a double mastectomy because of her higher risk for breast cancer, pathology came back after surgery with breast cancer in her right breast.
- According to a SurvivorNet medical expert, the Breast Cancer Risk Assessment that Dr. Aliabadi and Munn credit for encouraging them to take action with their health is a statistical model that allows healthcare professionals to calculate the probability of a woman developing breast cancer over the course of their lifetime.
- While your doctor has undergone years of training and practice, she or he is ultimately still human and may come with their own set of biases that can impact how they treat patients.
- To combat these biases and really the most out of your interactions with your doctor, you should provide her or him with plenty of information about your life and ask plenty of questions when things aren’t clear.
The gynecologist and dedicated women’s health advocate, 53 now, was 48 years old when some atypical cells showed up on a routine mammogram. Dr. Aliabadi is affiliated with the Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles.
Read More
“You said come back in six months but my score’s 37 percent. If you told me I have a 37 percent risk of being hit by a car today, I’d stay home. I love my children, I love my husband, I love my job. I don’t want to get breast cancer.”
She asked for a double mastectomy, which is the removal of both breasts, the same surgery that Munn revealed that she had.
However, this was five years ago, and Dr. Aliabadi was called “paranoid, anxious” and “everything else you can possibly imagine.”
Munn was also told she had little risk for breast cancer, but then she was diagnosed. And after Dr. Aliabadi’s 10-hour surgery, she found out that she indeed had had breast cancer. It had been stage one in her right breast. Noticing that her surgeon, who had only performed four mastectomies to date at that time, had missed some tissue, Dr. Aliabadi asked for an MRI.
“The same head of MRI who called me crazy for doing a mastectomy said this was the cleanest MRI she’d see and there was no retained breast tissue and I said, ‘Well, you also missed my cancer.'”
Seeking a second opinion, the doctor said the same as the first.
Finally, a third doctor agreed with her. Like Dr. Aliabadi had surmised, the surgeon had left 35 percent of her breast tissue behind and she needed another surgery.
View this post on Instagram
“I started bawling my eyes out in the office. ‘Are you guys going out of your way to kill me?’ she recalled saying, just so spent and fed up at her overall treatment throughout the experience. “People had called me crazy, but here we were.”
Dr. Aliabadi continued, “I’m a women’s health advocated, I’ve dedicated my life to the best standards of care and empowering women. But if this is how I get treated, we still have a lot to change.”
“I will change that,” she vowed.
With her new podcast, Dr. Aliabadi said she wants “to empower every single woman on this planet to be their own advocate.”
When Olivia Munn was told about her low risk then wound up getting cancer, Dr. Aliabadi recalled saying, “You’re my voice, you have a platform, you have to talk about this too.”
And she did. “I’m so proud of her — she’s not done. Just like me, she’s on a mission so she’s not going to be quiet, I promise you.”
Sure enough, shortly after Dr. Aliabadi’s interview was published, Munn proudly shared that she was just named one of Time’s 100 Influential People in Health.
Leaving one last message for her doctors and all the other doctors out there who have been guilty of something similar, Dr. Aliabadi added:
“Promise you’ll never call another woman crazy for wanting to remove her breasts.”
What Is a Breast Cancer Risk Assessment?
The Breast Cancer Risk Assessment that Dr. Aliabadi and Munn credit for encouraging them to take action is “a statistical model that allows healthcare professionals to calculate the probability of a woman developing breast cancer over the course of their lifetime,” Dr. Ruth Oratz, breast medical oncologist, NYU Langone Health’s Perlmutter Cancer Center; clinical professor of medicine, NYU Grossman School of Medicine tells SurvivorNet.
View this post on Instagram
Genetic Testing
Genetic testing is also highly important for assessing your likelihood of getting cancer. When assessing the results, you and your care team can determine whether or not you should have a double mastectomy following a breast cancer diagnosis. Genetic testing can be as simple as a simple saliva swab or blood sample.
Choosing what kind of surgery to have is a very personal choice.
“As a breast surgeon, my job is (to help patients) understand that their long-term survival with mastectomy is equivalent to that with lumpectomy and radiation,” says Dr. Sarah Cate, Chief of Breast Surgery, Stamford Hospital.
Often women will request to have both breasts removed, believing it’s the best way to prevent the cancer from recurring. This is not always the case. The size of the tumor, its genetic markers, and the patient’s family history are all factors to consider when choosing which surgery to undergo. Like Dr. Aliabadi, it’s best to seek multiple opinions.
Should I have a lumpectomy or mastectomy?
Both Dr. Aliabadi and Munn tested negative for the breast cancer gene, so just because your results come back negative does not mean you cannot get breast cancer, which is a common misconception.
BRCA Gene Mutations
The BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations are among the most important genes to look for in breast cancer. Together, they are responsible for about half of all hereditary breast cancers.
These genes prevent cells from dividing haphazardly and uncontrollably in a person without mutations. Mutations prevent these genes from doing their job and can allow unchecked growth of breast, ovarian, and other tissues.
Understanding Provider Bias & Advocating for Your Health
While your doctor has undergone years of training and practice, she or he is ultimately still human and may come with their own set of biases that can impact how they treat patients.
To combat these biases and really the most out of your interactions with your doctor, you should provide her or him with plenty of information about your life and ask plenty of questions when things aren’t clear.
To better understand how you should approach conversations with your doctor, we spoke with Dr. Dana Chase, gynecologic oncologist at Arizona Oncology.
Avoiding Provider Bias – Is Your Doctor Understanding You?
According to Dr. Chase, physicians, like many of us, can be a bit biased when seeing patients. Dr. Chase makes clear that these biases are rarely sinister, but rather unconscious and more subtle. She says, “We have certain beliefs that we don’t know about. We might look, for example, at an older woman, and just by the way she looks we might make certain assumptions, and we might not even know that we’re making these assumptions.”
Sometimes, these assumptions can lead to differences in the care that doctors provide. That is the point at which you, the woman, should advocate for yourself and clear up any misconceptions the doctor may have, says Dr. Chase.
“Say things to your doctor like, ‘I may not seem healthy because I’m 92, but I want you to know that I play tennis three times a day,’ ” she explains.
This type of discourse can be really helpful when building a relationship with your physicians and even more important when it comes to creating a treatment plan.
“In order to avoid situations where potentially the doctor is making assumptions about you that you don’t even really know about, reminding yourself to tell the doctor who you are, to explain your life situation, I think is really important.”
It’s equally as important that you’re understanding your doctor as much as you want them to understand you.
“It’s never a bad thing to ask for something to be repeated, or to ask the doctors to explain it in different terms,” Dr. Chase adds.
So next time you go to your physician, we think you should feel empowered to speak up, both so she or he understand you and you understand them.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.