This is an interview with Robert Whitfield MD about his pathway into explant surgery and interest in breast implant illness (BII). He recounts that early in medical school his sister was diagnosed with breast cancer; he accompanied her to consultations, and she underwent mastectomies, reconstruction, and chemotherapy, experienced chemotherapy-related cardiac problems, and recently passed away from a recurrence in the new year. Whitfield links this family experience to his long career focus on oncology-related breast reconstruction and later interest in explant/BII.
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Marty, I should say, how did you get into the space of explant and BII? And, you know, obviously that's, you know, the. The foundation of us getting introduced. Where did that come from? What was your evolution? I imagine you did implants before you did explants.
Yeah, when I was in med school. I was in med school, I think about a month, and my sister called me and told me she had breast cancer. And, you know, of course, I'm now the doctor, even though I'd been in school for like, four weeks, and to sort it out. And fortunately, that day, the. The lecture was being given by an oncologist. And afterwards, I. I asked him. I'm like, hey, my sister called me and said she has breast cancer, and she was in a different city. And he had a colleague there. He said, hey, that's. That's not a problem. I'll call my, you know, colleague, and I'll set up an appointment with her. And I flew down and. And went to that appointment with her. And ultimately she went through mastectomies, reconstruction, chemotherapy, suffered some cardiac problems from chemotherapy, and lived overall a relatively long period of time. And she recently passed away of a recurrence in the. Just in the new year. And, you know, I. It's one of those things where you talk about trauma a lot, and I had always kind of put that in the back, and people asked me why I went into surgery and why I did so much oncology reconstruction, because that was my career, basically, and it was mostly about cancer reconstruction for women with breast cancer. And, you know, I never likened it to that as the sentinel event of why I did all that work and why I was so passionate about that work. But, of course, when you think about it, that's a driving force of why I did all that for so many years. So.
