Barbara Warnock-Morgan saw a number of different breast cancer specialists at Mount Sinai. She was happy with the way they cared for her—and with the way they worked with each other.

“Mount Sinai was there for me when I needed it,” she says. “I chose to do my chemotherapy and radiation at Mount Sinai Chelsea because of proximity—the location is close to my work.  Everyone there made me feel comfortable and cared for.”

At the Women’s Cancer Program at Mount Sinai Chelsea, one of the first things she asked her doctor, Paula Klein, MD, was if she would lose her hair. “I was offered the option of scalp cooling, which helped me to keep my hair and my sense of my identity. So even when I felt sick, I didn’t look sick, and that was important to me,” she says.

At Mount Sinai Chelsea, she saw Dr. Klein, an Associate Professor of Oncology and Hematology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, for chemotherapy.

She also saw Elisa Port, MD, Associate Professor of Surgery, for breast surgery at the Dubin Breast Center;  Alice Yao, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery, for breast reconstruction at The Mount Sinai Hospital; and Manjeet Chadha, MD, a Professor of Radiation Oncology, for radiation treatment at Mount Sinai Chelsea.

She found Mount Sinai Chelsea—a newly expanded and renovated office close to the Chelsea Market, the High Line and other neighborhood landmarks—extremely convenient and easy to reach by public transportation. “The facility is modern and comfortable, and the level of care I received was excellent,” she says. “Getting appointments was also pretty easy.  The atmosphere is very pleasant, and the staff is fantastic.”

Along the way, she appreciated the coordination of care and the special patient services. “Mount Sinai made it easy. I would recommend others take advantage of the comprehensive services offered at Mount Sinai Chelsea. Seeing a psychiatrist helps you feel more normal.  Guided meditation during chemotherapy helped me relax a lot.”

At times, Barbara actually looked forward to leaving her office for the relative calm of Mount Sinai Chelsea. She liked meeting and talking with other patients who were facing some of the same issues.

“From my first visit to my last, Mount Sinai was able to provide coordinated services for my entire treatment plan. All my doctors have access to my records in a centralized system,” she says. “I never had to leave the system, and that relieved a lot of the anxiety and stress that patients in my situation feel. Having breast cancer is scary—Mount Sinai was able to take care of the details and make it less scary.”

When a regular mammogram showed early stage breast cancer, Donna Tookes had some important decisions to make. Choosing the Women’s Cancer Program at Mount Sinai Chelsea turned out to be one of the best of them.

Donna’s husband, Darryl, had read about a clinical trial that was being led by Paula Klein, MD, a medical oncologist at Mount Sinai Chelsea who focuses on care for breast cancer patients in the tristate area. It would end up saving the day for Donna.

The clinical trial studied the effectiveness of the DigniCap® scalp cooling system to reduce the likelihood of chemotherapy-induced hair loss in women with breast cancer. Donna and Darryl were so impressed that they decided to commute from Stamford, Connecticut, to enroll and participate.

“Cancer didn’t care if I lost my hair. Mount Sinai did,” she says. While participating in the DigniCap trial, she also received her chemotherapy treatment at Mount Sinai Chelsea.

“I want others to know about the life-saving and life-changing work that is being done there,” Donna says.  “At a very scary time in my life, Mount Sinai gave me hope.” Four years after treatment, she had no signs of cancer.

As a result of the research by Dr. Klein, an Associate Professor of Oncology and Hematology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the DigniCap system was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2016 to reduce the likelihood of chemotherapy-induced hair loss in women with breast cancer.

Mount Sinai was the first health system in New York to offer breast cancer patients the DigniCap, which is now available at the Dubin Breast Center of The Tisch Cancer Institute, Mount Sinai Chelsea, and Mount Sinai West. In the FDA clinical trials completed in the United States, 7 out of 10 patients with early-stage breast cancer kept at least 50 percent of their hair.

It might not seem like much. But keeping her hair made a world of difference. “Having access to the technology at Mount Sinai allowed me to keep my hair, which helped me feel more like myself during months of challenging treatment,” Donna says.