For three decades, Deborah M. Axelrod, MD, director of clinical breast services at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, has helped women overcome breast cancer. In March 2001, the breast surgeon felt a small lump in her breast. She called her husband after seeing her sonogram. “I’m looking at the scan. I know that’s cancer,” she says in this Vital Signs podcast.

Dr. Axelrod was determined to continue working through her treatments and is now among a growing number of breast cancer survivors. Her experience reshaped how she communicates with her patients. “Far more people get breast cancer than die of breast cancer," she says. “I can help put that into perspective for them.”