Breast Surgical Oncology Fellow Clinical and Research Experience

Moffitt’s Comprehensive Breast Oncology Program is a recognized preeminent breast cancer program and serves patients throughout Florida, the United States and around the globe.

New breast patients to the cancer center peak at over 3,100 per year—85% breast cancer and 15% undiagnosed or benign breast disease. Surgical caseloads across our eight dedicated, fellowship-trained breast surgical oncology faculty are about 2,900 cases per year.

In addition to the large volume of operative cases, fellows are exposed to an expansive breadth of disease presentations and operative interventions from early to advanced stages of breast disease. State-of-the-art technologies and equipment, combined with leading-edge operative techniques, are pillars of Moffitt’s compassionate patient care and exceptional patient outcomes.

Of note, fellows receive hands-on exposure to both breast-surgeon-directed oncoplastic surgical techniques and breast ultrasound/biopsy techniques.

Fellows spend the majority of their one-year fellowship on surgical service rotating with all the breast surgical faculty. The remaining months are dedicated to medical oncology, radiation oncology, breast radiology, plastic and reconstructive surgery, lymphedema/physical therapy clinic, genetic counseling and testing, palliative care/psychosocial medicine, integrative medicine, high-risk breast clinic, diagnostic breast Clinic, community outreach and research.

Fellow Research Experience

Fellows have a consistent track record of research publications and presentations at national meetings.

The fellows are assigned research mentors with whom they frequently meet to ensure progress of the research projects.

Multiple Moffitt faculty have peer-reviewed grant support and fellows work alongside faculty in basic science research, translational research and intra-institutional/multicenter clinical trials.  Fellows have access to immense retrospective tissue and data resources with support from research coordinators, protocol templates, medical editors, and biostatisticians.

Unique to the Moffitt Breast Fellowship is the opportunity for fellows to enter our Physician Scientists Program after the completion of the one-year SSO Breast Fellowship. Here, fellows will be under the auspices of their research mentor(s) to gain additional research/biostatistical/educational experience to further propel their career as a surgeon-scientist leader in the sphere of breast cancer care.

Also distinctive to Moffitt is our pioneering research in artificial intelligence, tumor ablation programs and intra-tumoral immunotherapy programs. Many of the tumor vaccine protocols ongoing at Moffitt are home-grown by our faculty with intriguing data moving the needle in the right direction in terms of patient outcomes.

Conferences

1. Weekly didactic sessions by experts in their fields
2. Monthly Journal Club
3. Morbidity and mortality conference combined with the Moffitt Complex General Surgical Oncology Fellowship (CGSO) Program
4. Quarterly breast visiting professor lecture series
5. Weekly institution-wide Grand Rounds