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In This Issue:
Mehra Golshan and former patient Ellen Collins smile from the top of Vail Mountain, three years after Collins' successful surgery.
Former BWH patient and avid skier Ellen Collins still remembers the words of her surgeon Mehra Golshan, MD, FACS, before her double mastectomy in June 2010.
“He said, ‘I will meet you at the top of Vail Mountain,’” she recalled. “He made me believe that I would survive an aggressive and rare form of stage three breast cancer. As I approach my three-year anniversary of being cancer-free, I was particularly touched when Dr. Golshan reached out to book his family’s March vacation to Vail. It was truly a blessing to celebrate life while skiing with him. He kept his word, and I am still on this earth.”
This is just one of many patient examples of the compassionate care Golshan provides.
Three other former patients also shared their stories of Golshan’s care during a spring ceremony to celebrate the establishment of the Dr. Abdul Mohsen and Sultana Al-Tuwaijri Distinguished Chair in Surgical Oncology and the appointment of Golshan as its first incumbent.
“You were there for me every step of the way and beyond,” former patient Ellen Kennelly told Golshan, who performed her breast cancer surgery in 2009. “You really heard and understood me and my needs.”
Golshan joined BWH in 2003, after completing a fellowship at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where he made the decision to specialize in breast surgical oncology. He has served as director of Breast Surgical Services at the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center since 2007.
At the event, Department of Surgery Chair Michael Zinner, MD, called Golshan “critical to the mission of the hospital,” and Chief Medical Officer Stan Ashley, MD, described him as an “incredible academic surgeon.”
Former patients and sisters Rebecca Matchett and Jennifer Aronson, who underwent breast cancer surgery after learning they were carriers for BRCA1—a gene highly associated with hereditary breast cancer—also expressed their gratitude.
The chair was established by Golshan’s patient Sultana Al-Tuwaijri, of Saudi Arabia, to honor her late husband Dr. Abdul Mohsen Al-Tuwaijri, a former patient.
“Sultana Al-Tuwaijri is a special person who places her highest priority on education and family,” said Golshan. “Both she and her husband were treated for cancer at BWH, and their commitment to help eradicate disease around the world is through research, education and prevention. I am honored to accept this chair.”