Ben Anderson, MD believes that modern medicine has made tremendous progress in cancer diagnosis and treatment, but healing begins with understanding a patient’s needs and wishes.
“Breast cancer treatment requires that the patient make many decisions about therapy options,” he says. “My role, like a coach or guide, is first to help my patient understand the core cancer issues that define her choices, and then to provide the surgical expertise to create the best technically effective and esthetically pleasing outcome for her, as a whole person.”
A native of California, he earned his B.A. in mathematics at Pomona College and his medical degree at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Following a general surgical residency at the University of Colorado, Dr. Anderson trained in surgical oncology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York as an American Cancer Society Clinical Oncology Fellow. He joined the surgical faculty at University of Washington in 1994.
Dr. Anderson has clinical expertise in high risk breast health evaluation, minimally invasive breast diagnosis, locally advanced breast cancer, international breast health care, and oncoplastic breast surgery, which are procedures that simultaneously improve oncologic and cosmetic outcomes in breast conservation surgery.
As director of the Breast Health Clinic at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Dr. Anderson is Professor of Surgery and Golbal Health Medicine at the University of Washington. Since 2005, he has published on novel surgical techniques in oncoplastic breast surgery. Dr. Anderson is past-president of the American Society of Breast Disease and currently serves as vice chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Breast Panel and chair of the NCCN International Program Committee.
Dr. Anderson is an internationally recognized leader in global cancer control. With joint appointments at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Division of Public Health Sciences and the UW Department of Global Health, Dr. Anderson continues to chair the Breast Health Global Initiative, which he created in 2002. It is a unique program to develop “resource-stratified” guidelines for breast cancer early detection, diagnosis, treatment and palliative care in low and middle income countries. In 2011, the American Society of Clinical Oncology awarded Dr. Anderson its Partners in Progress Award and the National Consortium of Breast Centers awarded him its 2013 Inspiration Award, recognizing his dedicated efforts to improve quality and effectiveness of breast cancer around the globe. Since 2012, Dr. Anderson has served on the Board of Directors of the Union for International Cancer Control. Dr. Anderson now co-chairs the Breast Cancer Initiative 2.5, a global campaign to reduce disparities in breast cancer outcomes for 2.5 million women between now and 2025.
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