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Bert M. Petersen Jr., M.D. - Chief of Breast Surgery, Department of Surgery; Co-Director, Breast Center Services at the Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center; Associate Professor of Surgery at UMDNJ, Hackensack, New JerseyCancer Screening and Management
Photo of Bert M. Petersen Jr., M.D.'The terrible burden of racial disparity in cancer goes beyond the toll in sickness and death. For example, among African Americans there is a higher rate of single-parent homes. Breast cancer has a higher probability of striking younger African American women while they strive to raise their children, work and build relationships.'
Bert M. Petersen Jr., M.D., F.A.C.S., is a brilliant academic who employs his gifts in a personal crusade to eliminate disparities in African American cancer rates. He earned undergraduate and medical degrees from Johns Hopkins University, and has been a surgical oncologist and director of the Family Risk Program at New York City's Beth Israel Cancer Center. He also has been an assistant professor of surgery at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Dr. Petersen's specialty is breast cancer. He is currently chief of breast surgery, in the department of surgery, and co-director of breast cancer services at Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, New Jersey. He has created many educational programs in New York and in his native St. Thomas, V.I., that encourage women to get timely screenings in order to make informed decisions about their prevention and treatment options. Such work earned him the National Cancer Institute/National Black Leadership Initiative on Cancer's "Unsung Hero" award. It's not every day that New York, Black Enterprise and Redbook magazines agree, but they agree on Dr. Petersen: He has topped all their "best doctors" lists.

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