On today's episode, meet Dr. Tufia Haddad, she is a wife, mother of three young men and a medical trailblazer. Her remarkable journey radiates empowerment, as she champions women's voices in medicine, igniting sparks of possibility.
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On today's episode, meet Dr. Tufia Haddad, she is a wife, mother of three young men and a medical trailblazer. Her remarkable journey radiates empowerment, as she champions women's voices in medicine, igniting sparks of possibility.
Enjoying this podcast by theheadwrapsocialite….Like, follow and share! Comment below to keep the conversation going.
IG: theheadwrapsocialite
Good afternoon and welcome to everybody. The podcast which shares stories that highlight people in life that make the world an interesting place, which ultimately ties us all together in unique and wonderful ways. And who am I? You might ask. I would be the headwrapped socialite Weith mom, micro-influencer in the fashion and etiquette world. But on this podcast I will be introducing you to some people who I've had the opportunity to meet along my journey, who have helped enrich me in my life in beautiful ways and who I hope will do the same in your life.
Speaker 1:On today's episode, I have the pleasure of sitting down with my friend, dr Tafaya Haddad. Dr Tafaya is a wife, a mother of three incredible boys and a trailblazer in the world of medicine. We have known each other for over 13 years, meeting when our oldest children were classmates. We've cheered many a soccer game from the sidelines, as our young men are also teammates. What inspires me about Tafaya is that she is a guiding light and she champions the voices of women, igniting the spark of possibility and those who dream of making their mark in the medical profession. So, dear listeners, please help me in welcoming my friend, dr Tafaya Haddad to today's episode. Tafaya, thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much for the invitation and the kind words.
Speaker 1:Tafaya, could you tell the listeners a little bit about who you are?
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, boy, it's funny, I know a little time I sometimes take to reflect on myself and a seemingly simple, easy question to describe myself. Well, I guess I would start by saying you know, I was born and raised here in Rochester where I'm now raising my family. It's such a fantastic place to be a kid, to have a family, to raise a family, and I was the oldest of three girls and still have very close relationships with my sisters. I knew I wanted to go into medicine at a very, very young age, probably first grade or so, wow and I'm always asked oh well, was your father a doctor? I'm like no, he was not. But my mother was a research technologist. At May I worked in a laboratory and so I remember just kind of growing up being exposed to the laboratory. I'd be able to go in on weekends or some evenings when she had some experiments to keep going and I was just fascinated by it, loved science, always curious, and having the exposure in Rochester and Mayo Clinic and that community at such a young age really helped to shape who I am.
Speaker 2:As a senior in high school my mother was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer and at that time I had no idea what that meant. She would get some treatment, she would get a little better, and I did not know that her disease was incurable. And about seven, seven and a half months, just a couple of weeks after my high school graduation, she died of breast cancer and it goes without saying that has shaped a lot of who I am today. And, like I said, I always knew I wanted to go into medicine after that experience. I really wanted to prevent cancer. I wanted that to kind of be my specialty.
Speaker 2:But ironically, I went through my training. I always thought doing cancer medicine or oncology would be too close to home, would be too hard, would hurt too much. And yet my very first rotation, taking care of my very first cancer patients during my training at the hospital where my mom passed, it just felt so right. I connected with patients, I connected with families and I felt like I was doing something, I had the power to actually do something, make a difference. That's something I didn't have. Watching my mom go through that experience, yeah. And my mentor attending on that rotation kind of set me down. He'd only worked with me for about three days and just said you know you're an oncologist, right?
Speaker 2:And that kind of set the path forward. Medicine is a lot of who I am now cancer medicine and that's one part of me. And then the other part of me is a wife, a mother 10x harder job than a young college, but I love it. I love raising my boys. They are my highest highs and my lowest lows, but it's such a gift, such a blessing I do not take it for granted. I love raising boys. I feel like I was born to raise boys, even though I grew up in an all-girl home.
Speaker 2:I don't know how that happened, but that's where I am. My dad, I talk about my mom, and she was such a go-getter, multitasker, inspired everyone around her as well. My dad, on the other hand, was always the one to just sit us down and put records on and listen to music. We'd listen to Bob Dylan tunes and Simon and Garfunkel and that was kind of the soundtrack to my youth. And just to slow down, stop and smell the roses feel the sunshine, feel the breeze be in the moment.
Speaker 2:I remember just kind of stargazing with him as a kid too, like a really fantastic memory A beautiful, cloudless night, just to put the blanket out on the grass and just look up at the stars. So I have that balance from my mom and dad. But in talking about my dad, I think once he realized he had three girls and will always have three girls and no son, I just kind of gravitated towards spend time watching sports together. I mean Minnesota sports by and large, but it was just kind of our bonding type too. If it wasn't something out in nature, outdoors or listening to music, it would be watching sports together. So I grew up just loving sports.
Speaker 2:The Norse stars roster as a six, seven-year-old girl and cherished my autographs from hockey players and everything, so I think that was sort of helping me shape me to be the boy-mama I am today.
Speaker 1:Exactly. And as you mentioned hockey, I was thinking like, yeah, and now your boys have all played hockey. Did you kind of push them into that, or you know it's interesting Sort of.
Speaker 2:I love it it's funny, I still laugh.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:It's funny, I still laugh I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it. How my husband and I met. Do tell, oh gosh, this is so funny. So we met on matchcom in 2002, which I think was just a year after matchcom was even a thing and I was like, how am I going to explain this to my grandma? You know, I paid 20. I didn't have a profile, you know whatever, but you know I was single.
Speaker 2:I was a resident here in Rochester. I'm like I'm going to be single the rest of my life if I don't try something, oh goodness. My cousin told me about it, bless her heart. And you know, there I was just scrolling and, you know, came across this profile and you know it's fascinating what someone can say about themselves, you know.
Speaker 1:And so question for you Two sentences. Did Kev have a picture he?
Speaker 2:had a picture, okay, and it was actually him, okay, but you know it was just he. He wrote about like work, life balance, being outdoors, think something about red wine, and and he had Minnesota Wild, you know, season hockey tickets, I'm like check, check, that's fantastic. So I paid 25 bucks just to get the email, make that connection, which was great. And then he's like well, send me a photo. And I'm like okay it's the best buy to get a scanner, because this is 2002.
Speaker 2:So I paid 125 bucks to scan in the best possible photo I could find in my cell. But yeah, it's so funny to look back and share that story now when you know people meet online all the time now. But yeah, we've had season tickets. When we were living in Minneapolis we had season tickets. So, yeah, we're both huge hockey fans, so it just was inevitable Our kids are all going to be on skates.
Speaker 1:There's so many questions that I have for you and I'm thinking like which way do I want to go? I will reel myself back in because I want to delve more into the story of like the best buy in you know the bestcom, but that'll be for later. Of course, if we were to talk about your journey to becoming a breast cancer oncologist and I remember you had said in your introduction how you didn't know if that was the way you were going to go in your medical journey have you found healing in that?
Speaker 2:Absolutely 100%, I will tell you, having lost my mom to breast cancer, I would say those initial actually probably several years just had so much anger, so much anger, yeah, and you know the five phases of grief. Yeah, I was stuck on anger for some time. Right, it was really interesting. Someone, finally someone. It was a professor actually.
Speaker 2:I went to college at Marquette University in Milwaukee and it was actually a professor there who I remember I had to go home to help my family. You know, our family went from five to four to three very quickly, my two younger sisters and my dad back home. And I remember just telling my professor I had to go back home to help my family, I was going to miss an exam, and he ended up just having a conversation with me and gave me, you know, I shared with him what had happened, lost my mom and, I think, to go help my family, and we just started talking and he said these words he, you know, basically gave me permission to be mad, Right, and I think part of that, part of that really came from my mom wanted to protect us so much. She wanted us to, you know, live a normal life.
Speaker 2:She wanted me to have a normal senior year of high school, right, and she didn't want it to be about her Right. She really didn't tell us how serious her disease was. I would say the same my dad really. None of us really knew how sick she was, and that's that's where I mean. It really wasn't until the last, her last 24 hours, when doctors finally told us, you know, that she was going. She was, you know, in the stages, phases of dying.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't until those 24 hours before she passed that. I knew she was deaf so so I had a lot of anger that you know she withheld that from us, you know and I know she did it from a place of love.
Speaker 2:But gosh, I I, you know, wondered, had I, would I have done things differently, spent more time? You know, said, you know, have the opportunity to have those conversations, had more time to say thank you and share my gratitude, and so, yeah, I definitely coming out of that was really challenging. So, you know, fast forward through my medical training and landing on becoming a breast cancer oncologist there's no doubt that it is, it has been a healing process to take care of patients, to see the advances in medicine, right, and and breast cancer oncology. And you know the vast majority of my patients, you know our survivors and gone to live. You know full lives transform, but full lives. That is so rewarding, right.
Speaker 2:But to also help those families, the women and men you know who have incurable disease to you know, help them through their journey, help their families through that journey, and that's such a blessing as well. So right. But also to be able to engage in research. You know that has been so fulfilling as well. To be part of the solution, right, to contribute to advances in our knowledge of why it happens. You know the risk factors and ways that we can better screen and prevent disease, better treat the disease, more cures, fewer toxicities. You know we're looking for those types of advances, so to be able to participate in that, in that research community, that also is very fulfilling Right and a different way that I can contribute really.
Speaker 2:And I think it really honors my mom as well, because you know she was a scientist at her core too. Wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as you, you know, share your story with me and the listeners. It's, I feel, like your compassionate heart and I think about the patients that you're able to help, because you understand a lot of what their journey is and you're able to show them, with the beauty of who you are and who your mom was, how to walk this path. And I know, you know there are people who do their profession, who do it, but there are people who live and love their profession because of the life experiences that they've had.
Speaker 2:It doesn't feel like a job to me, it's a blessing. I feel grateful for you know this gift.
Speaker 1:If it really is a gift.
Speaker 2:I don't take it for granted.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I think patients are my family.
Speaker 1:They are my sisters.
Speaker 2:I treat each of them as if they were my sister and, yeah, I don't know what it is to walk in their shoes but, it's just really you know my mom's sacrifice and all that she endured. I know she inspired so many as well at work. She yeah, she changed a lot of people's lives.
Speaker 1:You carry that torch, yeah, and you carry that torch and you're doing it in your way, yeah.
Speaker 2:And my hope is I can continue to inspire women in medicine as well.
Speaker 1:And that's.
Speaker 2:I think that's a big part of where that drive comes from. You know my, you know my mom. You know what she did and how she empowered other women around her. She volunteered, you know, in the community here as well, and you know helped young children who needed that. You know role model and that you know bright light in their life and, yeah, just to be able to continue to carry that forward, pay it forward, yeah, yeah, that is one of the most fulfilling things in my job as well is helping to support and empower women and yeah, yeah, that's beautiful, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that Absolutely. As a wife, as a mother to three busy boys right, I would just say busy young men how do you manage, in the midst of it all, to strike a balance between your professional and your private life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I don't know that. I have figured it out. Every day, every week, I'm learning, that's for sure. I think I have tried to let go of holding myself like accountable to that balance, so to speak. There are going to be days and weeks where I need to be more present at home or more present at work, and it ebbs and flows. So I would say that the couple of things that I do to try and keep some semblance of balance when I am home.
Speaker 2:Generally speaking, you know, Thank you, I put the email aside, I put the pager aside. I am there. People know I'm terrible at text messaging. You probably know this too, right? No, I never have my technology around me when I'm at home, and so I do my best to just not only is that like a good thing as well just try to be sort of technology free, Like when I'm home, I am there for them.
Speaker 2:I love to cook. I love to be in the kitchen. That is how I decompress. Give me a sharp knife and a bunch of vegetables and a cutting board and it's therapy.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I love even the way we designed our kitchen. I made it so that, like, the kids are there doing homework while I am prepping meals and we're having conversations about the day and people are coming and going during the school year. It's total chaos. Don't get me wrong, but I think when I'm home, I am home. When I am watching their soccer matches. I am watching their soccer matches. I'm not on my device, I'm not, you know. I don't even talk to some of the other parents.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't want them to think I'm staying at officer whatever Like I'm, just I'm there to watch the game and to watch my kids.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I just really try to be present and even if they don't get a lot of me on a busy work week, the time they do get I try to make sure is high, high quality and same thing on weekends. So I think that's how I try to balance and make it work is just to be present when I'm with them. I love that the beauty and the chaos.
Speaker 1:I love it, I love it. And since you mentioned, I'm gonna veer off a little bit. But since you mentioned cooking, what is your favorite dish? Do you have like a go-to dish that you cook, or do you like to mix it up?
Speaker 2:Oh, I totally mix it up. We have something different every day. I should come over, no, I mean I love to cook like thankfully I have great eaters not terribly picky, and it can be anything. It could be seafood one day it could be tacos one day, oh my goodness. It could be stir fry or pasta.
Speaker 1:Okay, what's on the menu for tonight?
Speaker 2:I was just looking this up, actually before I came over. We're gonna do Korean style sticky ribs, oh my good.
Speaker 1:Okay, dg, those are my favorites. So, dear listeners, I will be taking myself and my family. I've just invited myself and my family to your house tonight for dinner.
Speaker 2:I made them once and they're like in the slow cooker. Oh my gosh, they are magical.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're gonna need you I'm speaking for me and the rest of the listeners we're gonna need you to give us this recipe so we can post it with your episode, but yeah, I love it Because I think my boys see me in the kitchen as well.
Speaker 2:They started to pick it up and all of a sudden, my oldest knows how to make steak. Oh, I love it. It's a really good steak. Yeah, he just dove right in and watching him cook and spices and flavors and garnish and care about how it's presented on the plate.
Speaker 1:Oh, he plates it. Oh, he's. So my son. That's awesome. I can see him walking around the kitchen as he's cooking with his napkin and wiping off the plate as he presents it to the family. That's fantastic.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh yay, I just nailed it with this one.
Speaker 1:Besides cooking as something, as a way that you use to decompress, are there any other hobbies that you enjoy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's interesting. I find myself this is like a really bizarre to admit, but you know I feel guilty when I am like just spending time on me and I know I shouldn't. There's absolutely no reason I shouldn't and I would tell other people take care of yourself, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:Make time for yourself and even sitting down to read like about 20 minutes in, I'll be like gosh, I really should be out doing something else or whatever. So, as silly as that sounds, I don't have like go-to hobbies outside of cooking, but what I do like is spending time outdoors. That, to me, is so grounding. It doesn't take me long to just be completely lost in the moment and just like my dad raised me right Like feeling the sun, feeling the breeze, walking in the tree. It's that's what I enjoy most. That's what absolutely crowds me in another way that I decompress so I could be on a bike. It could be a hype, but yeah, just being out in nature.
Speaker 1:Do you still find yourself stargazing?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, I can absolutely get lost. Favorite constellations oh gosh, not that good. No, it's just gazing. There's no looking for specific. And it's just gazing really. I've tried to pull the boys out on the deck or out on the grass to do that with me, especially on great summer nights like we've had For sure. Or when there's the electrical storms and the cloud lightning. You know, just I'm like, hey, we're sitting outside and we're going to go watch this and it's great Like they get it.
Speaker 1:That's so good and it's beautiful too, because they will use these experiences right and they'll take those with them when they go off to college and when they get married, even though, you know it's like, oh, you know, it seems like it's so many years down the road.
Speaker 2:Well, I've watched it with you.
Speaker 1:Oh, my god, we're going to blink our eyes and then I know. Our kids are going to be us.
Speaker 2:But I remember that one of our first soccer matches with Jack and Zion when they were so young and adorable Jack is my oldest, zion is your youngest and then you had these three other just beautiful older boys and I was like that is my future. They, like Jay and Trina, are five to seven years ahead of us and just watching them grow and watching you launch them. Yeah, Wedding. I know that happened really really quickly I know, and there's our future.
Speaker 1:I know, and it's like you look at our boys, now they're juniors. It's like what? Then you have a freshman, and then Sixth grader. Sixth grader, yes, unreal these years are so fun, though.
Speaker 2:To become these young men, yeah, and having conversations with them. Them navigate those transitions and helping navigate the crazy world we live in. Help them look ahead, enjoy the now, but looking ahead. They're busy years, they're crazy years, but, boy, if I could freeze a moment in time with my kids, this would be the phase this would be the phase that I am just loving the most. But I've said that before too, right, I know. So it's maybe 10 years from now. This is the best phase.
Speaker 1:Exactly Do you ever find yourself and sometimes I find myself looking back and saying, oh my goodness, I hope that I enjoyed every season because they go so fast. But, like you said, right now you're enjoying this phase. Did we say that when? I'm sure we did, when they were in kindergarten and first grade, fifth grade, and it's just like but then the years go fast that you can't remember. Did I really, was I really in that moment with them?
Speaker 2:No, I know it's funny to look back because from like 0 to 3, 4 years old for each individual boy, I'm like I don't have a really strong memory. Those years are so, just so busy and so cognitively, mentally challenging.
Speaker 2:Tough those are tough years and very little work life Trying to manage with really young kids. It's fascinating, but I do remember once they hit kindergarten and they started reading and they started having these incredible thoughts and the creativity and having conversations about how they see the world. I remember loving that phase too, and just the unconditional, unbridled love they have for you at that age right, exactly, but they have that same love I've noticed, you know, within your boys for each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's interesting the dynamics and how they change over time. And especially with three it's like a couple always kind of pair off and have a little bit better relationship than you know despair and you know changes and evolves over time. But yeah, I have no doubt they have each other's path and I'm very grateful for that. They're good boys and they do care about each other, even though they show it in the most bizarre way sometimes. I know it's there. I know it's there within them.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. We're going to go back a little bit. Like I said, I have a lot of questions for you. When you talk about oncology, can you share some of the insights or the innovative care delivery model you and your teams are working on now, especially since we're now in a highly digital age?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's interesting. When I first became interested in leveraging digital for patient care, it really came out of a place of need for patients. You know I shared earlier I am very blessed and very fortunate with all the advances in breast cancer research that you know. The vast, vast majority of my patients are long term survivors and it is the most beautiful problem to have as an oncologist. But the issue is we don't have enough oncologists to take care of all these survivors post treatment and I kept asking every year I'm like we need to hire another oncologist, we need to hire some, we need to hire another one and finally I'm like okay this is not sustainable.
Speaker 2:There are not going to be enough. We have to think differently and care for these patients, for treatment, differently and candidly. You know we are trained to treat cancer. We are not always experts at managing the side effects or the toxicities or some of the long term surveillance, late complications of therapy, the psychological aspects post treatment. So it was kind of the constellation of those things where I'm like we have to do things differently. They deserve better, they need more. It's well recognized that. You know cancer survivors' needs are very often unmet post treatment. So that is how you know.
Speaker 2:We actually created a digital kind of app based care plan to help support breast cancer survivors after treatment and our goal was to be able to remotely monitor these symptoms and side effects and to be monitoring for recurrence or late complications of therapy. But the goal was to have engagement of primary care physicians and to have them engaged in that post treatment management and in surveillance, but to still have the oncologist's expertise when needed to help assess or treat and manage. So that was kind of the goal to kind of decompress the clinic so we could make space for new patients but to still keep connected with them to not just, you know, discharge and say goodbye, good luck. You know, we wanted to still be engaged, we want to still be there, but for the majority of people who are doing well, we don't always have to see them back, you know their primary care women's health specialist do a phenomenal job helping to support and manage post treatment.
Speaker 2:So if we could transition more of that care to that practice again, it would enable us to see and take care of more new patients. We knew the cancer incidents, you know, especially for breast cancer, is going to be, is going to continue to rise as our population ages and that's, you know, we need to be able to support the new patients too. So that was kind of how I became interested in remote patient monitoring and you know I really postulated back then. You know this was 10 years ago when, when I first became engaged in the space, actually even before the technology was there to really support this model of care. But I was absolutely convinced I'm like they're going to have better symptom control because we don't monitor. You know, historically we haven't monitored them in between once every three months or once every six months or even annual visits. Now we're actually doing that. We're actually monitoring and providing in between visit care. I'm like, I'm confident they're going to have better symptom control. We're going to potentially reduce the cost of care by not bringing everyone back on a, you know, fixed basis. So it was. It was fascinating to see some research come out. You know, shortly after we were creating and getting ready to implement this, this app, this care plan, there was a group who had a similar you know similar concept. They were working in the lung cancer population and what they showed is that form of weekly symptom monitoring, remote monitoring through the web, you know, internet based symptom monitoring once a week. Something as simple as that gave the patients better symptom control, better control of their symptoms. They actually lived longer, their survival was significantly improved and there was a reduction in the cost of care. And I'm like, yes, that's it, like this is what we want, right? We want our patients to feel better, have a better experience, live longer and then help bring down the cost of care. So it's to be able to help lead that now.
Speaker 2:I led our remote patient monitoring program from 2017 to 2021. So we were implementing this, you know, before the pandemic, and not just for cancer. This was broadly for heart failure management, for diabetes management, other chronic conditions, and then we did it for post hospital, post acute care and then for oncology. We grew the care model out for patients who are having complications from their chemo therapies and we consistently show in our research that this type of care delivery. Again, we developed a remote monitoring program for COVID-19. We knew that we did not have, you know, hospitals across the country, around the world, didn't have capacity to care for all the patients. So we very quickly took our framework and adapted it for COVID-19.
Speaker 2:We're like, okay, we're going to do monitoring of high risk patients who are at high risk for severe COVID and do the remote monitoring. You know, have the devices in the home to be monitoring vital signs, objective data, to have them reporting their symptoms twice a day. And you know, we showed that the patients who are monitored versus those who had risk for severe COVID and who were unmonitored, when you balance all the, you know, make the groups as equal as possible. The patients who were monitored, you know again, had better outcomes less time in the emergency department, less time in the hospital. If they went in the hospital there was less need for ICU level care. And we really believe that.
Speaker 2:You know, by doing that remote monitoring you're able to earlier identify, you know, when things are not going in the right direction and we could often intervene with really simple interventions to help change that disease trajectory and help keep them in the home or again. If they needed to go into the hospital, it usually was a short hospital stay that you know didn't require the ICU as frequently and lower mortality rates. It was exciting to see that research now is starting to really drive transformation of healthcare and we're not just using digital because we're in this digitally enabled world. We're using digital to improve, like I said, improve the patient experience, improve the clinical outcomes. You know how neat is that that? It's not a new drug. It's, you know or not, a new drug with a super expensive or comes with a lot of side effects.
Speaker 2:It's just changing how we care, yeah, that can improve a patient outcome. And so that's exciting to see that continue to grow and healthcare policy and reimbursement models are starting to align so that we can, you know, continue to disseminate this model of care, but very patient centered, trying to keep more care outside the hospital and clinics and in the home environment.
Speaker 1:I love it. You know the transformation of, you know the digital age. Yeah, like this is amazing to see the trajectory of where healthcare will go in the next five years, because it's happening, it's happening, it's happening.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and you know that I think has been one of the silver linings in medicine coming out of the pandemic. Cause there aren't many. Right, there have been many silver linings, but this was one of them, just a really you know, accelerate the adoption of telehealth and virtual care and practicing differently and all these things. There was a lot of concern that it would be a lower, you know, quality of care. Right, we're showing just the opposite and, generally speaking, patients have a very good experience. They want more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this technology that we're seeing, too, is for the greater good, and you can see that with you talking about your patients. I would like to ask you how do your patients inspire you on the daily?
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting so many do in so many different ways.
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes it's they inspire me professionally. Sometimes they inspire me personally, as we have conversation about being a mama boys. I have several patients who are moms of boys and I will tell you sharing stories with them. Those are some of my favorites Ways in which I'm inspired by my patients, or sharing recipes or, you know, it could be anything.
Speaker 2:There's so many different ways, but I think, generally speaking, just watching them go through such a life-changing event, everyone copes differently. Their bodies, their minds, their relationships, observe and, you know, be witness to this for people over and over. It inspires me every day. You know I had a patient who just recently came to Mayo because of a clinical trial opportunity and she shared with me. You know I'm doing this because you know I want to contribute to research.
Speaker 2:I need the world to be a better place for my daughter, who was just diagnosed with breast cancer and her daughter was in her 20s and I was just so choked up because you know here she is already so young herself and you know wanting to engage in research for just having to take a clinical trial to help advance the knowledge for the next generation, including her daughter, who had so I mean it's. Stories like that absolutely inspire me, and I think it's by all of us in the research community. So many of us have all been touched by cancer in some way. Almost everyone has a story. Who's in the cancer research or oncology community? But the patients again inspire us to get out.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing that story Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Some of the research that I'm engaged in I loved, like I said, as a little girl, I love being in the lab. Actually, I worked in a laboratory for two years in between college and medical school and had that first hand lab experience and I absolutely loved it. It's, I loved it, but I was always like but what does this mean?
Speaker 1:How does this translate into human beings?
Speaker 2:It's cool with the cells and all this, but like, how does that impact humans and human health and human disease? So that's what you know, again, just validated. Yes, you need to go into medicine.
Speaker 1:Right On the people side of the research.
Speaker 2:But I feel so fortunate to have had that experience because that's what my research is now. I partner with basic scientists who do the work in the lab and are evaluating new treatments and I help translate that into a clinical trial to evaluate these new drugs and new therapeutic approaches in people with breast cancer, with drug-resistant disease, so to see that those lab experiments actually translate into treatment option. I feel very blessed to be able to engage in research. We call that the, you know, from the bench to the bedside. It's really fascinating to be evaluating these new treatment options in clinical trials.
Speaker 1:As a female leader in medicine. How do you empower Because that's you know, that's one of your jams how do you empower and support the next generation of aspiring female professionals?
Speaker 2:So I guess I would always say I always try to lead by example and I think that's at work and at home and everywhere is to try and lead by example. I try to be as accessible, approachable as possible and I had daughters of my patients come shadow and follow me in clinic and just the ability to share that experience and inspire you know, hopefully inspire them too.
Speaker 2:That is one of my absolute favorite parts of my job. So I try to just kind of have that open door. You know love to help advise. I can't possibly be a mentor to all, but I do try to be an advisor to as many people as I can. So just to kind of help them talk through decisions they are making. It could be about what specialty to go in. It could be, you know, do I want research to be part of my career, you know, or whatever it might be. I just try to help coach honestly, yeah, kind of help coach people through those decisions along that career pathway. So as a leader though that's where you know we still have a long ways to go. In medicine we do not have enough, you know, women in leadership roles, but I think that will change. What I hope to see is more diversity in leadership roles and I think it's coming, the efforts and intentions to be more inclusive in leadership.
Speaker 2:I see it happening and I have hope for that when I'm in those circles, whether it's recruiting or hiring or faculty development or actually sitting on a search committee who's helping to, you know, hire or bring in a leader, you know, having the ability to establish a search committee that is diverse and representative, because you need that at the table in order to ensure that we have more women for sure, more, you know, racial, ethnic, minority leaders. It won't happen unless we are intentional.
Speaker 1:Amen, and there can be people who talk about it and there can also be people who be about it, and I am grateful you know that you're one of those people who are about it and you are taking the lead and taking the charge and inspiring change. So thank you, my friend. Thank you, my friend, with your expertise and experience, what advice would you have for families that are going through a diagnosis of breast cancer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think you know, if I could give advice, sometimes I'd be like, well, is it the best advice, or is it just me? Through the lens of my experience being a family member, but being open, communicating with your family, communicating with your friends, I think that is such an important thing with the new diagnosis is a lot of my patients have said that having that transparency about the disease helps the people around. It makes it a little less scary For some. Sometimes it can make it a little more scary, especially for younger children who may not be able to process everything. But I still encourage them to talk with their children and talk with their family and their loved ones. Be open to help.
Speaker 2:There's so many people who want to help but don't know how to help. When a friend or a loved one is diagnosed with cancer, sometimes people will pull back and I see that happen time and time. I saw it happen with my mom and I see, and hear it from my patients too that when people don't know what to say or don't know how to engage or how to help, they sometimes will just completely retreat. That's a scary place to be, is to feel some of that abandonment when you have a new diagnosis, especially if you have incurable disease. I encourage people to again have conversations, pull those people in and talk candidly about it, find ways to bring in help and resources to get through it, whether it's helping the home, help managing the kids, helping the day to day, help with meals, whatever it might be just to ease the burden of going through a diagnosis and treatment, but also allowing those people who want to help to participate and to be part of helping you through that journey. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and with your expertise, can you give us, your listeners, some practical tips in promoting, I guess, early breast detection awareness? Yeah, definitely, oh gosh.
Speaker 2:I had just felt myself light up with it.
Speaker 2:You know there's such a misconception that I'm only high risk if it's in my family, and the important thing is for people to know that 75% of people largely women, but also men who are diagnosed with breast cancer do not have a family history, and it's possible that you are at higher risk for disease even without a family history.
Speaker 2:So I encourage all people to, if you don't have a primary care provider, to find one or a women's health specialist who ends there are dedicated breast clinics at many of the larger medical centers as well where you can have your risk assessed. I think that is one of the most important things or a message I could communicate is know your risk. For example, women who have dense breast tissue on their mammogram and it's not dense breast tissue how it feels, it's actually on the mammogram images where the density of the breast tissue is. You know the radiologist is able to look at the mammogram and assess using the software to assess the density of the breast tissue. And women who have dense breasts by mammogram are at a threefold higher risk of developing breast cancer, and a lot of women don't know that. So those are the types of things and reasons to have that conversation with the, like I said, either a primary care provider, women's health specialist, a breast specialist and especially if you have a family history any family history of breast or gynecologic cancers.
Speaker 2:So it's important to have your risk assessed. That risk assessment then can help you know influence with the or bright size the screening program that's right for you. And you know we still recommend annual mammograms starting at age 40.
Speaker 2:If you have a family history of breast cancer, you may need to start your imaging younger at a younger age and if you are at higher risk for breast cancer, you will qualify for additional, what we call supplemental imaging, so other imaging technologies that are more sensitive than mammograms complementary.
Speaker 2:They don't replace mammograms, but you may qualify for additional screenings. So the nice thing as well is, you know, by having those conversations you also will have the ability to learn about, you know, research for better screening. You know we are working on blood tests, blood tests that can pick up tumor. You know tumor DNA and those blood tests are really the future of cancer screening as well, and so I think we need more research yet to not only improve the tests, but also knowing what to do with a positive test, you know. So there are research, you know opportunities, and we need everybody in and we want to be inclusive in that research as well, so that how we screen is representative of our entire community, not just specific cohorts. But, yeah, for screening and for prevention strategies as well, there are many great research opportunities. So that would be my single piece of advice.
Speaker 1:Thank you, my friend. No, that was wonderful because I think we all need to hear it, because a lot of times I think myself included that you know certain body types or you know, oh, I don't need to go in and check, oh, I'm not this age, even though I may have had a family member who has had this disease. So it's nice to hear and it's good for all of us to hear, to also reinforce, at the age of 40, you know, go get your mammogram done, whether or not you're a man or a woman. Also, if you have a history of family breast cancer, it is a good idea, along with your healthcare provider, to go in earlier. Don't wait until you're 40.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, get that assessment early so that you can have a personalized, a tailored screening and prevention plan. You know, we have medications that have been shown to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer and women who are at high risk for breast cancer. So, they are so underutilized. So underutilized, they're incredibly effective and yet uncommonly utilized. Why? Because people are not getting their risk assessed, you know. In part, that's why. But, nonetheless, yeah, it's so important.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for that information. We're gonna bring it back. So I know from conversations that I've had from you that you are a music enthusiast. You're like where are you going with this? Where are you going with this? I hope she doesn't say cheerleader, oh, that's coming. Oh, that's coming. We're gonna save that to the end. So, listeners, I would say, listen after the closing of sun. But we've heard that you're a musical enthusiast. I know that you're a musical enthusiast. What's your favorite song? Oh, gosh. Or what's your favorite music genre, because I know you guys like concerts.
Speaker 2:I love the music of the 60s.
Speaker 1:I do.
Speaker 2:I do, I do. It was the music I was raised on. I still gravitate to it today. I try my best to share it with my boys as well. My youngest beau bless his heart ask for a record player for Christmas this past year I know how cool is that kid and some of their first albums. He just fell in love with Bob Marley.
Speaker 1:Oh my god.
Speaker 2:We were just singing. In fact, I have three little birds. I was like singing it earlier today. I love that song. Yes, I would say that is the genre. That was the music I was raised on.
Speaker 1:Simon and Garfunkel. You had mentioned them earlier. What's your favorite?
Speaker 2:album or song. So song that one is very easy, because my dad used to sing it all the time.
Speaker 2:In fact we put the lyrics after he passed the little prayer cards. He actually put on the back the lyrics to the 59 Street Bridge song. So that is the slow down, like moving too fast. You got to make the morning last just skipping down the cobblestone. Oh, I love it. I love that, my friend, life, I love you, always groovy. I just was like gosh like I said, that was my dad, you know, slow down, you're moving too fast. So yeah, I still try to live by those lyrics, especially when I find myself just working too much.
Speaker 1:And dear listeners, you can see why I just love this woman.
Speaker 1:There are certain people that hold just a really, really special place in my heart and you are one of them and I have really enjoyed this time that we have had together. And I want to say, as we bring this captivating interview to a close, we find ourselves like I said I love this woman in the presence of true inspiration to fire Haddad. She's a wife, a mother and a woman whose passion for medicine inspires others on a daily basis. She's a beacon of hope. She is a woman who advocates for other women and allows their voices to be heard in the medical field.
Speaker 1:She knows that the transformative impact that diverse perspectives can bring to the world is healing. Her life and work remind us in the power of empathy, the resilience of the human spirit and the profound impact one individual can have on the lives of many. My friend's journey inspires us all to embrace our own unique paths and find strength in our shared humanity. So thank you, my friend, for being a part of this episode, and I've told you this before I love you. Oh, I'm so grateful to have you in my life.
Speaker 2:I am, I am so grateful.
Speaker 1:I need you. Another thing that you and I resonate on is our love for cheerleading, and you know I was not going to forget this. So another thing that I want to do this sounds so bizarre, but we're going to get a group of us who were cheerleaders and I swear our kids are going to be so mad. But let me tell you, kids, we're about to go viral, but I would love to pull like a bunch of us who were cheerleaders.
Speaker 1:There's plenty of us Right and just just do like every now and then, like get together and do some cheers. We don't have to do like the jumps. I bet you you can still do some back lifts, like let's not pretend and splits, but I think it would be like the coolest thing. We're going to get our sweatsuits, oh, our tracksuits, with our names on the back. I love it, but I think that would be like the coolest thing. I mean, how much fun would we have.
Speaker 2:Well, I shared. So you know it's funny. I picked up cheerleading because I used to be a gymnast growing up and as an eighth grader the gymnastics club in Rochester just closed and like I was done doing gymnastics and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna close it Exactly. And I was like getting ready to go into high school and I'm like you know, actually I mean it was, I joke about it now, but I mean it was devastating.
Speaker 2:That was my identity, just like I watch my own kids with you know their identity as a soccer player, as a hockey player, and yeah, I get that. I remember I identified as being a gymnast growing up and all of a sudden that chapter was closed and I'm like, okay, it's too old to pick up sports and be good or competitive at the high school level, so I guess I'll be a cheerleader. You know it's so funny because I still brought the competitive gymnast in me to cheerleading, which was not competitive when I started as a freshman in high school and thankfully I had a co conspirator who also was a gymnast with me and my dearest friend growing up and we both started cheerleading as freshmen and I tell you, we turned into a competitive team and went into competitions, started winning competitions, qualified to nationals as juniors.
Speaker 1:And it's so funny.
Speaker 2:We had a great squad. I was also proud of it. However, I will say cheerleading taught me one of the most important aspects of leadership and it's something I carry with me to this day. And I really impressed upon the rest of friends and teammates on the cheer squad, the competitive nature and for some people unbeknownst to me, they didn't necessarily want to be on a competitive team. They were there for the other people.
Speaker 2:I would take you on the team and say you know what cheerleaders are supposed to do? Oh really, and I just remember a few of them giving me that tough feedback that not everyone wants to win like you want to. Not everyone wants to compete like you want to compete and you make some people feel bad. That was so eye-opening.
Speaker 2:It was so eye-opening and I definitely have some guilt and remorse, you know, but I was young and I didn't know and I needed that experience, to know today that if your team doesn't have a common goal, a shared goal, you're not going to function as effectively as a team. And yeah, so that's a good leadership quality that I learned through cheerleading.
Speaker 1:See, cheerleading does some wonderful things. So many life lessons in cheerleading.
Speaker 2:It's so crazy.
Speaker 1:But, yeah.