Your First Visit

Every patient at the Breast Cancer Specialty Center at SCCA has a personal team of breast specialists who are faculty members of UW Medicine.

On your first visit to the Breast Cancer Specialty Center, your case will be reviewed by a team of doctors, including a surgeon, medical oncologist, radiologist, radiology oncologist, and pathologist. During this visit, you may meet with the team, or you may meet only with the surgeon, depending on the treatment plan recommended for you.

This visit usually takes most of the afternoon. You may bring a friend or family member with you for all or part of the appointment.

Five steps, one afternoon Here's what happens during this appointment:

1. Your mammograms and scans will be reviewed with your team of doctors by a breast imaging specialist and a nuclear medicine physician with expertise in PET and lymphatic mapping.

2. Your pathology slides (tissue samples from any biopsies) will be reviewed by the team using a special microscope that allows everyone to see the same image simultaneously.

3. One or more of the doctors on your personal team will meet with you and conduct a thorough examination.

4. One or more of the doctors on your team will meet with you and your family or friends that you would like present, to discuss the team's findings, answer all of your questions, and suggest a treatment plan.

   This discussion will be taped and the tape will be given to you so you can review it again later if you wish.

5. You will leave at the end of the afternoon with a treatment plan, either for your care at SCCA or with the doctor who referred you for the consultation.

August 2007