LETTER TO THE EDITOR: New Mexico deserves better breast cancer care

I am a breast surgical oncologist in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I take care of patients with breast cancer and melanoma. I moved from Texas to New Mexico a year ago after SB8 was passed in Texas restricting women's rights. When I moved to New Mexico, I had visited and knew how special it is but did not see much positive coverage online. Upon moving here, I made it my mission to learn and share the beauty of this state's geography, history and culture with other health care professionals and have successfully recruited multiple other health care professionals not only to my team, but to the other hospitals in the state as well.

We currently have 10 surgeons in New Mexico who are performing mastectomies, or removing the breast, for breast cancer. We have only three plastic surgeons able to provide full-time reconstruction services to rebuild the breast due to the high costs associated with medical malpractice. In the last few months, multiple plastic surgeons have chosen to retire, restrict their practices to low litigation risk procedures only, or not join health care systems which desperately need them due to the threat of extraordinary punitive damages in a malpractice lawsuit. Women in New Mexico with breast cancer already wait up to two years to undergo breast reconstruction, a service which is entitled to them by law. There are multiple open positions for plastic surgeons at health systems across the state. As existing plastic surgeons choose to leave, the wait time for reconstruction is expected to grow even longer for those patients who cannot afford to leave the state. In contrast, in Texas, women are able to get breast reconstruction with zero wait time.

Women in New Mexico are entitled to the same standards of breast cancer care as women in Texas.

Senate Bill 176 must be passed not only to recruit plastic surgeons but all other needed specialists to the state. New Mexicans deserve better.

Amani Jambhekar MD, MBA

Santa Fe