Educational Programming for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month

September 28, 2022 at 7:30pm EST

Navigating Triple Negative Breast Cancer: A Webinar with Joan Lunden and Dr. Barbara Ward, Chief of Surgery, Greenwich Hospital

An award-winning journalist, bestselling author, television host, and motivational speaker, Joan Lunden has been a trusted voice in American homes for more than 40 years. For nearly two decades, Joan greeted viewers each morning on Good Morning America making her the longest running female host ever on early morning television and she continues to be one of America’s most recognized and trusted personalities. This mother of seven children was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in June of 2014. An eternal optimist, she turned her diagnosis into an opportunity to become an advocate and help others. She chronicled her experience in her memoir Had I Known.

Dr. Barbara Ward is the medical director of the Breast Center at Smilow Cancer Hospital Care Center in Greenwich and an associate clinical professor at Yale School of Medicine. She is also the first woman to be appointed Chief of Surgery at Greenwich Hospital. Dr. Ward is on BCA’s Medical Advisory Board and was Ms. Lunden’s breast surgeon.

Joan Lunden Dr. Ward

October 28, 2022 at 12pm EST

Black Women and Breast Cancer: A Webinar about Education, Outreach, Incidence and Healthcare Inequity in conversation with Commissioner Vannessa Dorantes, Dr. Cardinale Smith and Chaunte Lowe

Vannessa Dorantes, LMSW, is Commissioner of Connecticut Department of Children and Families and has worked for DCF since 1992. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Teikyo Post University and an MSW from UCONN School of Social Work.

From 2004 until her appointment as commissioner, she was an adjunct faculty member at Central CT State University where she has taught several elective and core competency social work courses. She has served on the SW Advisory Boards of Central and Western CT State Universities during their re-accreditation and currently on the UCONN School of Social Work Board of Advocates. Ms. Dorantes is certified in Social Work field instruction from Southern CT State University. In 2019, she was appointed DCF Commissioner by Gov Ned Lamont as the first African American to serve in that role for the state of Connecticut. Commissioner Dorantes cochairs Connecticut’s Alcohol & Drug Policy Council, the Governor’s Council on Women & Girls and has been appointed to CT’s newly formed Racial Equity & Public Health Commission. Commissioner Dorantes serves on The American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) Executive Governing Board and is a proud member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc and The Links, Inc which is one of the nation’s oldest and largest volunteer service organizations. She is also a breast cancer survivor.

Chaunte Lowe (see page 7)

Vannessa Dorantes Dr. Cardinale Smith Chaunte Lowe

Cardinale B. Smith, MD, PhD is a Professor with tenure in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology and the Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Chief Quality Officer for Cancer Services, Mount Sinai Health System. She is a medical oncologist and palliative care physician whose clinical practice is focused on lung cancer and palliative care. Her research interests focus on doctor-patient communication, evaluating treatment disparities in cancer care, determinants of cancer patients’ quality of care, characterizing barriers to optimal cancer and palliative care and developing approaches to eliminating those barriers among racial and ethnic minorities. Dr. Smith is a 2013 recipient of a mentored research scholar grant from the American Cancer Society to evaluate determinants of disparities in the utilization of palliative care among patients with lung cancer. She was a co-investigator on a Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute grant to teach and enable goals of care conversations among oncologists. Additionally, she is the recipient Sojourn’s Scholar Leadership Grant and an R01 grant, extremely competitive federal funding, from the National Cancer Institute to evaluate the role of implicit bias among oncologists on minority cancer patient outcomes. Dr. Smith has had numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals, and in 2015 was named one of the Top 40 Inspirational Leaders under 40 by the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine.