Mroz-Baier Breast Care Center
A CENTER OF EXCELLENCE
The Best Breast Care Center In America
Mroz-Baier Breast Clinic supports promise to Spouse
Patients do not have to be referred by another physician, Mroz believes in total one stop convenience for breast care. A mammography screen is reviewed the day of the procedure. If a possible abnormality is seen, then more tests are completed the same day or within 24 hours, an approach she thinks relieves the "ping pong" effect of cancer treatment.
"Breast care has been fragmented and delegated to a variety of physicians who do not communicate with each other," said Mroz. "The patient bounces between gynecologist, radiologist and surgeon. After several weeks of appointments, she may find the lump in her breast is nothing or a cancer diagnosis has been delayed."
Mroz, who received her general surgeon training at the Mayo Clinic, is one of only a handful of doctors nationwide currently specializing as a breast care physician.
"If breast cancer was a predominately male disease, the tallest building in town would be devoted to research," said Baier, a strong and vocal advocate of the clinic's other goal to train more doctors about breast care.
"Some doctors may think they are God, but many of them do not know as much as they should in this specialty," he said. "A key to decreasing the number of breast cancer deaths is proper training of doctors."
Attached to the clinic, is the Molly Meisenheimer Training Room, named to honor the Germantown resident who founded the Memphis Race for the Cure. It comfortably seats medical residents from the University of Tennessee specializing in gynecology, radiology, surgery, family or internal medicine who come for a month of formal training and to shadow Mroz for a better understanding of breast disease.
State-of-the-art equipment is available on site such as the stereotactic needle-core biopsy table with digital camera and computer. As the patient lies face down on the table, the camera locates exactly the suspicious anomaly that will be removed by a small wire needle gently pulling the tissue into its open core. The whole procedure takes only 30 minutes and eliminates open surgery for 80 percent of patients with benign abnormalities.
To make an ultrasound diagnosis, Mroz was self-taught on the best technique. "I performed 1,000 free ultrasound procedures before I charge any patient," she said.
Mroz supports early detection of breast cancer and encourages a mammogram every year after the age of 40. With her calm and confident manner plus a reassuring smile, she also wants a woman who feels a lump in her breast to tell the doctor because screening mammograms, although improved, miss a cancer about eight percent of the time.
Although he has had no formal medical training and is an accountant by trade,
Baier has learned everything he could about breast cancer in the nearly 10 years since his first wife's death. His obvious pride in the clinic and Mroz maintains his intense energy level and his fervent crusade to have more doctors make a commitment to a higher standard of breast care. "I've done it all for Julie," Baier said.
The Mroz-Baier clinic is the sponsor of this year's Ko-Men dinner on Sept. 23 in anticipation of next month's Race for the Cure to raise money for breast cancer research and education.
The Ko-Men is a group of men who support the women only 5K race scheduled for Oct. 9 at the Shops of Saddle Creek in Germantown. The men put up booths for the marketplace, do race timing, clean-up the area and generally do thousands of tasks so the women can run and celebrate life and the possibility of even more improved treatments,more breast physicians and maybe a cure for breast cancer.