(upbeat music)
- My name is Dr. Mark Gittleman.
I'm a breast surgeon working at Coordinated Health
at the 250 Cetronia Road campus.
I've always had an interest in biology and science.
No one in my family is in medicine,
so I'm really the first one.
But I've always had an interest in that
ever since I was a kid.
When I was in high school is used to work
at the hospitals as an orderly,
so I got into the hospital environment,
used to follow the doctors around,
kind of liked what I saw, and I just
gravitated into that area.
I graduated from Franklin and Marshall College,
and then went to medical school
at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia,
and did my surgical internship and residency
at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
When I finished my training in the mid '70s
I was in the Air Force for five years
as an Air Force surgeon.
Following that, I came to Allentown in 1979,
and I was in a general surgery practice.
I had an interest in breast surgery and breast cancer.
A number of my family members had been
unfortunate enough to have breast cancer.
That was one of the reasons.
And also some of my mentors in my residency program
had an interest in breast cancer
and breast cancer surgery.
I found the science fascinating,
the surgery quite interesting,
and the ability to help women with this malady.
As far as what we actually provide,
services to our patients,
is not just doing breast surgery,
but it's rather making the diagnosis of breast conditions
which may or may not lead to having breast surgery done.
In other words, we see patients commonly
for breast masses, breast lumps, breast pain,
or abnormal mammograms or other
imaging studies of the breast.
That's why the patients come to see us.
But we don't just receive patients
after they've had a diagnosis of breast cancer
made elsewhere for treatment,
we actually make the diagnosis
and also provide the treatment.
The reason I chose to join Coordinated Health,
as opposed to other regional healthcare providers,
was the philosophy and the ability
to get things done in an efficient, quick manner,
without having a lot of overlays of beaurocracy and so on.
I think patients, of course, have a choice
of where they go for their breast care.
I've been in practice now for more than 30 years
here in Allentown, and a few years before that
when I was in the Air Force.
I bring to Coordinated Health,
and I bring to the patients that we serve
my experience, and my training,
and my deep interest in breast care
and breast cancer surgery.
But my other interests are in teaching
and in doing some of the research
and consulting with industry folks
about new products, new diagnostic tests, and so on.
The other research we do is with
a national cooperative group, such as the NSABP, or ECOG,
the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group,
research trials, and so on.
So we're very much interested in doing research,
because we know it leads to better treatment
for our patients in the future.
The most common condition we see patients for
is their fear of having breast cancer,
in other words, a patient comes in with a breast lump
or an abnormal mammogram or breast pain
or discharge from the breast nipple area and so on.
These are the complaints we see patients for.
So the most common conditions we see
are actually benign breast disorders,
but within that mix, of course,
we see patients who are newly diagnosed
or yet to be diagnosed with breast cancer.
We actually see men in our practice, too,
with breast abnormalities.
Men have breast pain.
They have breast masses.
And men actually develop breast cancer, too.
In our practice, we see about 200 or 200 plus
new breast cancer cases every year,
and actually that pans out in that we see
one to two male breast cancer patients every year.
That's that 1%.
As far as advice I'd give to women
about taking care of their breast health,
it's important that they recognize
that there are certain risk factors that they have,
or they don't know that they have,
which should be assessed.
So basically, women should be having
a physical examination of the breasts
by a healthcare provider annually,
either by their primary care, their GYN doctor,
or by us, but also start having mammograms
at age 40 and every year thereafter.
There are certain exceptions to that
where women would start having mammograms earlier
if they have very high risk factors,
strong family history, and so on.
But basically that's what women should do,
have an annual examination by a healthcare provider,
and annual mammography starting at aged 40.
At the facility at 250 Cetronia Road,
Coordinated Health also has newly acquired
the breast imaging facility called
Advanced Imaging for Breast and Body,
which is housed in the same facility as my office is.
At that facility, we have all of the tools that we need
to help in the diagnosis of breast conditions.
We have some equipment that is unique to this facility,
such as PET mammography, or PEM,
which is a nuclear imaging of the breast.
We also provide breast MRI, digital mammography,
breast ultrasound, PET CT scanning.
Likewise, in addition to those diagnostic modalities,
we also have a treatment center in the imaging center
where we treat patients with breast cancer
with partial breast radiation.
The thing that drives me to do what I do every day
and get up in the morning is because
I'm intensely interested in what I do
and taking care of our patients,
talking with our patients,
doing the surgery.
I find it technically very gratifying,
and also personally very gratifying
to talk to our patients about what's going on,
how we can help them.
I enjoy that part, and I look forward
to doing that on a daily basis,
in addition to working with my colleagues
on some of our research and our educational efforts.
That's what ... It's fun.
Every day I get up thinking,
"This is going to be a good day."
That's why I go to work every day,
thinking this is going to be fun.
A patient said to me one time,
"Gosh, Dr. Gittleman, when are you going to
"retire someday and enjoy life."
I said, "Well, I'm enjoying life right now.
"What I'm doing."
It's not that I have to retire to enjoy things.
I enjoy what I'm doing, or else I wouldn't be doing it.
(upbeat music)