October 1, 2005
The Jeanne A. Petrek, MD Breast Cancer Walk

By Lawrence Hospital
$25 donnation per family for the Jeanne A. Petrek Memorial
Professorship Fund

The event jointly sponsored by the Working Women of Bronxville & the
Junior League of Bronxville raised over $6,000 for breast cancer
research.

The walk was along the Bronx River Parkway Path in honor of Dr. Jeanne
Petrek, a Bronxville resident, who was tragically struck and killed by this
past April at a Manhattan street crossing.  Dr. Petrek was an attending
physician and surgeon in the Breast Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center and a world renowned breast cancer researcher.

Proceeds for the walk were donated to a special fund established by
Memorial Hospital for the perpetuation of Dr. Petrek's memory and good
works. The fund's first goal is to endow a Jeanne A. Petrek, MD Memorial
Professorship.

The walk began with a ribbon cutting ceremony by Jeffrey Duban,
husband of the late Dr. Petrek.  

       In memory of and about Dr. Jeanne A. Petrek, MD














Jeanne A. Petrek received her MD from Case Western Reserve
University in 1973 and was a fellow at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center as a surgical oncology fellow in 1978.  Dr. Petrek then
served on the faculty of Emory University School of Medicine and joined
the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital medical staff in 1984. At the time
of her death, she was the Director of the Surgical Program at the Evelyn
H. Lauder Breast Center, and a professor of surgery at Weill Cornell
Medical College.

During her 20 years at the Breast Center, Jeanne treated more than
4,000 women and was committed to providing them not only with longer
lives following surgery, but with better lives. Devoting her research efforts
to the study of patients' quality-of-life issues, she became an extraordinary
advocate on their behalf.

Jeanne was a leading expert on pregnancy-associated breast cancer as
well as on lymphedema. Another central question she sought to answer
was how safe it is for young women to become pregnant after breast
cancer. She was close to completing a ten-year study on changes in
ovarian function following breast cancer treatment, such as premature
menopause and infertility, and the overall effect of these changes on
patients' quality of life.

The study involved 800 women, 44 years old and younger, who had been
treated with chemotherapy. It was the first extensive, prospective study
ever undertaken of the safety of pregnancy in such women. Five-year
results were presented at the annual American Society of Clinical
Oncology meeting in Orlando, Florida, in May.

Jeanne was a member of many scientific and medical societies, including
the Association of Women Surgeons, The New York Metropolitan Breast
Cancer Group, and the North American Menopause Society. She served
on the American Cancer Society's Advisory Board for Cancer Detection
and Treatment, as Chairman of the American Cancer Society's Medical
Content Committee for Breast Cancer, and as a Medical Advisory Board
member of the Young Survival Coalition: Young Women Against Breast
Cancer. Jeanne also served on several editorial boards, including the
boards of Cancer and The Cancer Journal of Scientific American. Her
scholarly contributions included more than 200 publications as author or
co-author of peer-reviewed papers, books and book chapters,
monographs, presentations, and abstracts.

Over many years, Jeanne served on numerous Memorial Hospital
committees, including the Surgical Quality Assurance Committee and the
Surgical Day Hospital Quality Assurance Committee. At the time of her
death, she was a member of the Executive Committee of the Evelyn H.
Lauder Breast Center Outpatient Breast Diagnosis and Treatment Quality
Assurance Committee.

Jeanne was beloved by her many patients, and a valued and respected
friend and colleague at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, where she played a
major role as a clinician, researcher, institutional leader, and mentor
during her two decades with the Center.  The Chief of Memorial
Sloan-Kettering's Breast Service, Patrick I. Borgen, said the following
about Dr. Petrek:  "Jeanne embodied the very best of what Memorial
Sloan-Kettering can achieve. Her warmth, enthusiasm, expertise, and
tireless dedication to the improvement of treatment for breast cancer will
be profoundly missed."


































                                           Jeffrey Duban


























     Cara Keily, Lisa Giuffra Diaz, Connie Moustakas, Kim Olson
Working Women of Bronxville -- The WWB Network