Health Talk

Douglas Yee, M.D., is the director of the Masonic Cancer Center.

At some point in their life, one in seven women will be affected by breast cancer. Second only to skin cancer as the most common cancer in women, more than 200,000 new cases of breast cancer will diagnosed in women each year in the United States.

AHC Gamechanger Douglas Yee, M.D., a University of Minnesota Physicians breast cancer specialist and director of the Masonic Cancer Center, has dedicated his career to the battle against breast cancer – a condition that he himself has only a one percent lifetime risk of developing.

“Starting off as a physician, I found helping patients to be very motivating,” said Yee. “But the people I couldn’t help are equally as motivating. And that has been the driving force behind the work I do.”

Drawn to the U of M by its highly cooperative environment and commitment to research, Yee has spent his time here actively researching new methods for detecting breast cancer and treating the disease. According to Yee, better treatment options come from understanding the basic biology of cancer, translational medicine and collaboration.

“No single discipline can cure cancer,” said Yee. “By involving more than just the medical community, our research has been able to play a larger role in the initiative to fight cancer.”

Yee’s work takes an interdisciplinary approach to improving an understanding of and treatments for breast cancer by involving departments beyond the health sciences and getting them interested in the fight against cancer.

In addition to his gamechanging research, Yee is also the director of the Masonic Cancer Center – one of only 40 institutions to be designated by the National Cancer Institute. Yee shares a dedication to the cancer center’s mission of building a collaborative research environment focused on causes, prevention, detection, and treatments of cancer while sharing its discoveries with other scientists, students, professionals, and the community; a dedication that is seen clearly through his research, relationships with patients, and involvement at the University of Minnesota and in the greater community.

If you ask him, Yee considers himself just a part of the bigger initiative to improve quality of life for the patients who end up sitting in front of him.  But if you ask us, he is an AHC Gamechanger.

We are #UMNProud to have him fighting for the cause!

For more Academic Health Center Gamechangers, visit the Health Talk blog next week.