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Former Gymnast Helps Battle Breast Cancer By Lindsey Meaux
During her four years as an undergraduate at LSU, Dr. Cecilia Montani-Cuntz (1987 BACH EDUC, 1993 MD) competed with the LSU gymnastics team, realized that her dream was to become a doctor, and met her future spouse. After her collegiate career on one of LSU’s first gymnastics teams, Cuntz moved on to the LSU School of Medicine where she researched breast cancer. Now a partnership with Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center and Woman’s Hospital gives Cuntz the opportunity to do free exams and mammograms for community care patients. “I enjoy it,” Cuntz explained of her work. “Usually I’m the one who tells them [they have breast cancer]. It’s very rewarding to take women from the diagnosis through the treatment and then hopefully to a normal life after treatment.” In addition to her work with Mary Bird Perkins and Woman’s Hospital, Cuntz helps the LSU gymnastics team with coordination of the Etta James Memorial Meet. The meet is a joint effort with Foundation 56 to promote early breast cancer detection. Cuntz was a general surgeon in Baton Rouge for a decade before she was approached three years ago by the Louisiana Breast Specialists to become a partner in the practice. Choosing to concentrate on breast cancer afforded Cuntz the opportunity to center her focus on the “rewarding” career path and her 8-yearold son. When she enrolled at LSU, Cuntz intended to study to become a physical therapist. She was sidelined from that dream when she completed required volunteer hours — and began to consider her future as a doctor. “Before you got into physical therapy, you had to do some volunteer hours,” Cuntz explained. “I did some at Our Lady of the Lake, and at that point I figured out I wanted to go to medical school.” When Cuntz has a free moment from her patients, surgeries and family, she said she enjoys exercise in a slightly different form — training for triathlons instead of the balance beam. Lindsey Meaux is a senior in the Manship School of Mass Communication, concentrating in public relations.
LSU Alumni Magazine | Winter 2010
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