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Health & Fitness

L+M Physician Friday -- Dr. Richard Hellman

Physician Friday is part of L+M Hospital's way of introducing members of its medical staff to the community.

Dr. Richard M. Hellman doesn’t play favorites with his patients – he promises great care, even if you’re a Yankee fan!

That’s good policy for the man who will be directing medical oncology at Lawrence + Memorial Hospital’s new cancer center, slated for groundbreaking in Waterford on June 21.

After all, the new cancer center will be affiliated with the world-renowned Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and it will inevitably be drawing patients from both Red Sox Nation and Yankee Universe.

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“Although I am a die-hard Red Sox fan, some of my favorite patients are Yankee fans,” Hellman says. “There is no discrimination in my office.”

All kidding aside, Hellman, who is board-certified in internal medicine, hematology and medical oncology, says he considers it the opportunity of a lifetime to be a key player in the advanced and sophisticated cancer center that L+M expects to open in September of 2013.

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Hellman has been involved in the design of the center since the beginning, and he said both the level of care and the attention to detail will make the facility the first choice for patients within many miles.

“We currently enjoy a great relationship with Yale for radiation oncology and Women's and Infants' Hospital for gynecologic oncology, and that will continue,” Hellman says. “But in medical oncology, we've been very fortunate to forge a relationship with Dana-Farber. The proposed Cancer Center will be a true satellite of Dana-Farber, providing state-of-the-art care for our patients.”

And the Dana-Farber connection is where Dr. Hellman’s Red Sox roots come back into play: after graduating from Wake Forest School of Medicine and doing his residency at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Hellman had a fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

“I became a Red Sox fan in the 1980s during my oncology and hematology fellowship training at Beth Israel Hospital,” Hellman said. “At that time, Dr. Larry Shulman was the fellowship training director. Well, ironically, I will be once again working with Dr. Shulman, who is now the Chief Medical Officer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.”

And while Hellman will surely be traveling to Boston to catch a baseball game at some point in the future, “Our patients won't have to travel to Boston in order to receive the type of care they would otherwise receive at Dana Farber,” Hellman says, “And, I will have one more great opportunity to work with my former mentor.

“This is a very exciting time to be at L+M Hospital,” Hellman says. “We are not only celebrating our 100th anniversary this year, but we will start our next century with a new cancer center, and I believe it’s going to be the kind of facility that will treat and cure patients for many decades to come.”

To learn more about Dr. Hellman, click here.  

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