Breast Surgery Fellow

The Multidisciplinary Breast Fellowship at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey and UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is a one year program for surgical breast Fellows and medical oncology breast Fellows. Fellows spend four weeks on surgical pathology for examination of breast specimens and four weeks in the Women's Imaging Center examining breast imaging studies, including MRI and 570 interventional procedures. For the surgical Fellow, five months are spent on the breast surgery service at CINJ where the emphasis is on the multidisciplinary management of the breast cancer patient. In the clinic, emphasis is given to patient assessment with a variety of minimally invasive techniques such as fine needle aspiration with immediate on-site assessment; diagnostic US and US guided core and vacuum assisted/rotational biopsies. In the operating room, the surgical fellow is the operating surgeon for complex cases such as skin-sparing mastectomy with immediate reconstruction; ultrasound guided partial mastectomy and the placement of partial breast irradiation balloon catheters. The Fellow instructs junior residents for simple procedures such as sentinel node mapping and excisional biopsy. Medical oncology-based Fellows spend two months on breast surgery where they act as assistants at surgery.
 
Fellows also spend one day every month at Plastic Surgery Arts evaluating new patients for breast reconstruction procedures, one day per month devoted purely to textbook reading, and one to two days per month devoted to a clinical research project. The Fellow will prepare a clinical research project for presentation at an appropriate national meeting in the spring. The Fellow will attend the monthly Breast Cancer Support Group and weekly Breast Tumor Study Group Meeting.
 
Surgical Fellows also spend six weeks on breast medical oncology, including a formal genetic risk assessment clinic. Medical oncology Fellows spend four and a half months on breast medical oncology and genetic risk assessment.† Both Fellows spend six weeks in radiation oncology evaluating new breast cancer patients and managing those on treatment. The final two months includes one month with either a breast surgeon or medical oncologist at the University Medical Center at Princeton (a primary community teaching hospital for RWJMS) and one month for an elective of the fellowís choice.
 
For additional information contact:
Dr. Thomas Kearney
Program Director
The Cancer Institute of New Jersey
195 Little Albany Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08903-2381