Gina Santel was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 right when Covid hit. “It was crickets in the hospital on surgery day,” she remembers. Her tumor was very small, and the cancer was stage one. In consultation with her physicians and family, Gina chose an aggressive battle plan: a double mastectomy, followed by reconstruction surgeries. She wanted to hit it hard, get rid of it, and never look back.

“I moved on with my life. I thought that was it.”

But then a month after her final surgery, she felt a little lump. She had it checked immediately and everyone who examined her and reviewed her scans agreed that it was likely a stitch left over from the surgery. It would dissolve in time. Nothing to worry about. Gina recalls her oncologist telling her that there was “less than a three percent chance of that cancer happening again.”

But the lump bothered Gina. After all she’d been through, she didn’t want to take any chances. Her breast cancer surgeon asked if she wanted to do one more scan—it was completely up to Gina. “Yes, let’s do one more,” she said.

The lump was not a stitch. Gina was the three percent.

Here We Go Again

This time the protocol would be radiation, followed by more surgery. Gina liked her oncologist and trusted him. “But when you get diagnosed for a second time you start having doubts. You just start getting scared about everything. I felt like, What’s going on? I was aggressive. I thought I took care of it.”

So, when her family member, Dan Devine, offered to connect Gina with a resource he had through his business connections for a second opinion, Gina said yes immediately.

“I had never really thought about getting a second opinion. I was really going through a hard emotional time. But when Dan made the offer, I thought, I have nothing to lose.”

Healthnetwork medical coordinator Jennifer Donnellan connected Gina with Dr. Ben Ho Park, MD, PhD, who is the director of the Ingram Cancer Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a Healthnetwork Service Excellence Award winner.

“Dr. Park is a gem!” says Gina. “You can tell by the questions he asks and the advice he gives that he is a scientist. He’s always thinking and giving me stats. I can tell he is always educating himself and keeping up on the latest research and treatments. He’s not just putting everyone in the same bucket. My other doctors were good. I don’t want to imply that I had doubts about them. But it was a scary time, and Dr. Park gave me peace of mind. He was on it. He had a plan and he was confident.”

Peace of Mind

Gina is hopeful her cancer journey is soon to be in the rearview mirror, for good this time. She weathered her radiation fairly well, and now she is taking an estrogen blocker and undergoing infusions to help strengthen her bones. She will continue to be monitored and see Dr. Park every six months. She switched to a breast cancer surgeon at Vanderbilt who works with Dr. Park. “My breast surgeon talks to Dr. Park and they work as a team. We’re all on the same page,” she says.

“I feel like I’m getting the best of the best of care,” she says. “When you’re facing cancer, you can’t ask for anyone better than Dr. Park. He’s the guy you want in your corner.”

Gina has wondered how things might have played out differently if she had not been connected with Healthnetwork to arrange a second opinion. “I remember Dr. Park said to me, ‘We can treat you for the medical condition, but everyone forgets about the emotional part of cancer.’ And he is so right. I can be getting the right treatment, but if my thinking is full of doubt and fear then that’s not healthy either. I think if I had stayed with my original doctor I wouldn’t have had as much peace as I do with Dr. Park.

Dr. Park gives me hope and peace of mind—and in this kind of situation, that’s everything.”