Meet Dr. Christin Knowlton

Transcript

• 00:00My name is Doctor Kristin Knowlton.
• 00:03I'm an associate professor of clinical
• 00:05therapeutic radiology and I treat
• 00:07cancers essentially in the chest area.
• 00:10Why primary specialty is breast followed
• 00:12by lung and I also treat GI cancers
• 00:15watching my father's satisfaction with
• 00:17his career and the warm relationships
• 00:20that he had with his patients over his
• 00:23many decade career inspired me to go
• 00:26into medicine and I wasn't sure that I
• 00:29wanted to go into radiation oncology.
• 00:31I went to medical school with an open mind.
• 00:35My first area of interest was geriatrics,
• 00:37but overtime that evolved into
• 00:39an interest in oncology,
• 00:40but I was unsure between medical
• 00:43oncology or radiation oncology,
• 00:44so I started taking electives in both fields
• 00:47and I fell in love with radiation oncology.
• 00:50During our visit,
• 00:51I like to start out by reviewing.
• 00:54What's happened since your diagnosis?
• 00:56What are the steps that have happened?
• 00:58While I may already know them,
• 01:00I'd like to confirm that I haven't missed
• 01:03anything and that we're on the same page.
• 01:06I'll do a thorough physical exam,
• 01:08of course.
• 01:08Answer any questions that you may
• 01:10have and work together with you
• 01:12to develop the treatment plan.
• 01:14And I always like the patients to leave
• 01:17with a written out treatment plan,
• 01:19or at least saying what the next
• 01:21steps are so that the patient really
• 01:24understands where we're heading next.
• 01:26What has really evolved during my ten
• 01:28years here at Yale is our ability to
• 01:31provide highly focused radiation.
• 01:33It's called stereotactic radiation therapy,
• 01:35and we can give a very high dose of
• 01:38radiation in just a few fractions
• 01:41for select patients.
• 01:42And it is pretty amazing how we've
• 01:45that technique.
• 01:45Can has a very high success rate
• 01:48for the appropriate patient to
• 01:50eradicate the tumor,
• 01:51and we often see minimal to no side effects.