Barbara Smith

Waltham, Mass. – April 25 – Barbara L. Smith, M.D., Ph.D. has been honored by the Massachusetts Medical Society as the 2016 recipient of the Women’s Health Award, an honor recognizing a physician for outstanding contributions that advance women’s health in Massachusetts. She will receive the award at the Society’s Women’s Health Forum in November.

Dr. Smith is the Director of the Breast Program and Co-Director of the Women’s Cancers Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She has also been the Director of the Breast Surgery Fellowship Program at the MGH, the Brigham & Women’s Hospital, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute since its inception.

She received her undergraduate training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, her M.D. from Harvard Medical School’s Harvard/MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from the Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Her thesis work was conducted at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She received her training in surgery at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Smith’s research activities have focused on reducing the extent of surgery and radiation required to treat breast cancer, improved approaches for lumpectomy margin assessment, issues related to diagnosis and treatment in young women with breast cancer, and three-dimensional breast anatomy as it relates to breast surgery and pathologic analysis of specimens. She has developed improved techniques for nipple sparing mastectomy and reconstruction and leads one of the largest nipple sparing surgery programs in the United States.

She has been a Visiting Professor at Sun Yat-sen University in China since 2006 where she has assisted in the development of multidisciplinary breast cancer programs and clinical research programs. She had been an Adjunct Professor of Breast Surgery of Hunan Provincial Tumor Hospital and the Affiliated Tumor Hospital of Xiangya Medical School of Central South University since 2013. She lectures extensively at national and international breast cancer conferences.

The Women’s Health Award from the Massachusetts Medical Society is the latest honor accorded to Dr. Smith. She has previously been recognized with a Compassionate Caregiver Award from The Schwartz Center, a Local Hero award from the Susan B. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, a Woman of Achievement Award from the Big Sisters Association of Greater Boston, the Partners in Excellence Award from MGH, and the Medical Student Teaching Award from Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The Massachusetts Medical Society, with some 25,000 physicians and student members, is dedicated to educating and advocating for the patients and physicians of Massachusetts. The Society, under the auspices of NEJM Group, publishes the New England Journal of Medicine, a leading global medical journal and web site, and Journal Watch alerts and newsletters covering 13 specialties. The Society is also a leader in continuing medical education providing accredited and certified activities across the globe for physicians and other health care professionals. Founded in 1781, MMS is the oldest continuously operating medical society in the country.

Research Summary

Nipple sparing mastectomy

Margin assessment

High risk patients

Publications

• Learn more about Barbara Smith, MD, and how a nipple-sparing mastectomy can reduce breast cancer recurrence.
• Nipple-sparing mastectomy. Rusby JE, Smith BL, Gui GP. Br J Surg 2010 Mar;97(3);305-16.
• An inferolateral approach to nipple-sparing mastectomy: optimizing mastectomy and reconstruction. Colwell AS, Gadd M, Smith BL, Austen WG Jr. Ann Plast Surg. 2010 Aug;65(2):140-3.
• Occult nipple involvement in breast cancer: clinicopathologic findings in 316 consecutive mastectomy specimens. Brachte EF, Rusby Je, Michaelson JS, Chen LL, Muzikansky A, Smith BL, Koerner FC. J Clin Oncol 2009 Oct 20;27(30):4930-2
• Development and validation of a model predictive of occult nipple involvement in women undergoing mastectomy. Rusby JE, Bracte EF, Othus M, Michaelson JS, Koerner FC, Smith, BL Br J Surg: 2008 Nov;95(11):1356-61