Celebrating a Decade of Innovation at the Dubin Breast Center.

This month marks the 10-year anniversary of the Dubin Breast Center, a philanthropic endeavor my wife, Dr. Eva Andersson Dubin, and I decided to embark on in 2008, one year after Eva concluded her emotional journey battling breast cancer.

We learned first-hand from this experience how difficult it is to navigate a breast cancer diagnosis and how disjointed patient care and support options can be while in treatment.

Eva shared her bold vision of tackling these issues head-on and profoundly rethinking the patient experience through the creation of a new Breast Center dedicated to combining leading-edge medical treatments with holistic patient care and support. In 2011, Eva’s vision became a reality with the creation of the Dubin Breast Center at New York’s Mount Sinai Medical Center; a place historically known for pushing the boundaries of patient care for over 150 years.

In 1855, Mount Sinai — then called Jews’ Hospital — was founded by nine men with the radical idea to provide free medical care for those who couldn’t afford it without compromising on quality of care. Unlike the other prestigious hospitals in New York City at the time, Jews’ Hospital opened its doors to everyone; irrespective of race, religion, or socio-economic status. The hospital played a pivotal role in caring for wounded soldiers returning from both World Wars and it established in 1963 the first medical school outside of a university setting in more than 50 years. It’s first class of students consisted of 11% women, nearly twice the national average.

The hospital’s rich legacy of embracing bold ideas and welcoming all is what attracted Eva and me to identify Mount Sinai as the ideal location for the Dubin Breast Center. Over the past 10 years, Eva has work tirelessly alongside Dr. Elisa Port, the Center’s Director, to grow the DBC’s size (now 200 employees) and wide range of services (which include integrated holistic care, stress-reduction therapies, and support groups). The DBC has even pioneered a method — called cold-capping — that so far has enabled over 300 women to retain their hair during chemotherapy, a vital component of self-esteem.

I was and continue to be inspired by my wife’s commitment to improving the standard of care for patients by thinking outside the proverbial medical box. In doing so, Eva and the DBC team have touched the lives of countless breast cancer fighters.

I am thankful to Eva, Dr. Port, and the entire staff at the Dubin Breast Center for their unwavering commitment to the community’s well-being, and I am proud to commemorate the Center’s 10 years of excellence in breast cancer treatment and research.

Learn more about the Dubin Breast Center here.