Breast Cancer

Our Experts

Doctors

• Dr. Michael D. Alvarado, breast cancer surgeon

• Dr. Christopher Benz, oncologist and breast cancer specialist

• Dr. Laura J Esserman, director of Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center

• Dr. Cheryl A Ewing, breast surgeon

• Dr. Eun-Sil (Shelley) Hwang, breast cancer surgeon

• Dr. Stanley P. L Leong, surgical oncologist

• Dr. Mary H. McGrath, plastic surgeon

• Dr. Michelle E. Melisko, breast cancer specialist

• Dr. Mark M. Moasser, breast cancer specialist

• Dr. John W. Park, oncologist and breast cancer specialist

• Dr. Catherine C. Park, radiation cancer specialist

• Dr. Jeanne M. Quivey, radiation cancer specialist

• Dr. Hope Rugo, breast cancer specialist

• Dr. Patricia (Penny) K. Sneed, co-director of the Gamma Knife Radiosurgery Program

Nurses

Lynn C. Beach is a family nurse practitioner at the UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center at the Mount Zion campus. She earned a bachelor's degree in biology from Santa Clara University, a bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of Pennsylvania and a master's degree as a family nurse practitioner at UCSF.

Before joining the breast care center in 2007, Beach was a registered nurse in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at UCSF Children's Hospital and a nurse practitioner and clinical manager in a local women's and fertility clinic. Beach has served as a volunteer with the UCSF AIDS Health Project and as a board member of the Tenderloin AIDS Resource Center. During the past nine years Lynn has completed five marathons and seven triathlons, including Ironman Canada in 2006.

Suzanne Eder, a nurse practitioner, has made a career out of caring for patients with catastrophic illness and feels it's a privilege to be so intimately connected to people's lives. A native of New York City, she earned a bachelor's degree in nursing from Hunter College and took a position at New York Hospital. Eder, an advocate for patients' rights, was one of the founding nurses of New York Hospital's AIDS unit.

Eder trained as a family nurse practitioner at UCSF Medical Center while she worked in the center's bone marrow transplant unit for three years. With her expertise as a nurse practitioner, Eder then provided care to patients in the community with both primary and specialized asthma needs. In 2001, she returned to UCSF Medical Center in the Breast Care Center to focus on breast cancer follow-up and prevention. One of Eder's primary goals is to improve the quality of life of breast cancer survivors and women at risk for breast cancer.

Mary Lou Ernest, a nurse practitioner, has been a nurse for more than 30 years, and has spent 17 of them caring for cancer patients, including those with melanoma, renal cell, bladder, prostate and breast cancer. For 10 years, she also coordinated clinical trials in oncology. She is particularly interested in symptom management, illness prevention and helping people cope with the loss of loved ones.

Janine Figallo is a triage nurse at the UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center at the Mount Zion campus. After earning a bachelor's degree in nursing at Dominican College in San Rafael, Figallo worked for several years in the bone marrow transplant program at UCSF Medical Center before earning dual master's degrees in Oncology and Genomics at UCSF.

Figallo completed the majority of her graduate work at the clinic of the breast care center and the Cancer Risk Program at UCSF. After graduate school, Figallo worked for two years as an associate clinical scientist at Genentech Inc. , before returning to UCSF in 2007.

Deborah Hamolsky, a registered nurse and nursing coordinator at the Carol Franc Buck Breast Cancer Center, has practiced oncology nursing since 1980. She develops programs at the center, provides direct clinical care and gives educational and emotional support to women with breast cancer and other breast health concerns. Over the years, Hamolsky has worked as an inpatient oncology staff nurse, a home-care case manager, a research assistant for breast-cancer nursing studies and an oncology and AIDS clinical nurse specialist.

Tara Lacey is a nurse practitioner at the UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center at the Mount Zion campus. A native of Ontario, Canada, she earned a bachelor of science degree in nursing iat the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada. She worked in a cancer unit in Yuma, Ariz. and as a traveling registered nurse in cancer and cardiology in Arizona, California, Oregon and Texas.

In 2000, she joined the UCSF Hematology and Oncology unit, where she worked for more than six years. During that time, she earned a master's degree at the UCSF School of Nursing, where she trained to be a nurse practitioner in oncology and gerontology.

Rachel Wheeler is a triage nurse at the UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center at Mount Zion. Before joining UCSF in November 2006, Wheeler was a chemotherapy infusion nurse.

Wheeler has clinical experience in oncology, bone marrow transplant and women's health. She earned a nursing degree at the University of Pennsylvania and is in graduate school, pursuing a nurse practitioner degree.