Mark Your Calendar: BRA Day is Wednesday October 20th Part I

Breast Reconstruction Awareness Day is a week away! We’ve partnered with BRCAStrong to produce two Instagram Live sessions on BRA Day. 

Dr. Randall Feingold and Dr. Ron Israeli will be discussing the History of Mastectomy and Breast Reconstruction with @BRCAStrong’s Tracy Milgram.

History of Mastectomy and Breast Reconstruction

BRA Day is coordinated with the Women’s Health and Cancer Rights Act of 1998, which was signed in the month of October. “The American Society of Plastic Surgeons started the initiative of BRA Day in 2012 and coordinated it with the timing in the month of when the Women’s Health and Cancer Act was signed,” Dr. Israeli explained.

Before the act was signed, many insurance companies did not cover breast reconstruction. As a result, training for surgeons was less in-depth, and the approach to both the physical and emotional treatment of breast cancer was quite different. Dr. Feingold touched on just how much that has evolved on the whole.

“The approach has changed so dramatically. Understanding the impact of diagnosis on patients, understanding the impact of body changing surgery on patients, and then with an awareness of family histories of breast cancer, and then I remember when the BRCA genes were identified and testing was hard to get for women. Now it’s formally available,” he said.

Check out the short video with @BRCAStrong below.

 

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