Stuart Samuels, M.D., Ph.D., is a radiation oncologist specializing in head and neck cancer and breast cancer at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center Plantation. For more information about the services and treatments offered, click here or visit the UHealth Collective:
MEET AMEILIA GOPIE:
Ameilia Gopie was just overcoming postpartum depression when she learned she had breast cancer.
“They said they found something. I remember that being the longest day of my life,” Ameilia says.
The new mom underwent chemotherapy and a double mastectomy. Then she met with Stuart Samuels, M.D., Ph.D., a radiation oncologist at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center Plantation.
“The primary treatment for breast cancer is surgery to remove the disease from the body. But radiation is used to sterilize the area where the cancer was, where there could possibly be microscopic disease left behind,” says Dr. Samuels.
Patients undergoing breast cancer treatment, who need radiation, can now be treated right here in Plantation. At this brand-new facility, Sylvester provides the most advanced technology for better patient outcomes.
“The machines here are really state-of-the-art. Basically, the most advanced X-ray technology that exists, we have here. We have access to all of the clinical trials that are at the main campus are also available here. So, if you have a unique cancer or a rare cancer. Or we’re trying to understand how to reduce the radiation or increase the radiation, whatever it may be, we have those same options here that we would have downtown. Between the comprehensive cancer care, really the expertise that we have here in this facility, we’re really able to create something very special here,” Dr. Samuels says.
“That’s the facility you want to work with, someone that cares for you as a human being,” says Ameilia.
This mom encourages all women to put their health first and get their mammograms.
“Taking care of yourself is a real thing. Just like you put on nail polish, and you comb your hair, and you put on deodorant, it’s a real thing. Go to the doctor, get yourself checked. That would be my message,” Ameilia says.
After battling postpartum depression and breast cancer, Ameilia is overjoyed to have bonded with her 3-year-old daughter Allana.
“It was just amazing to be like, ‘I’m a mom.’ I’m just extremely blessed,” says Ameilia.
FOCUSING ON YOU
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