Meet Dr. Christin Knowlton
December 16, 2021Information
Radiation Oncologist Dr. Christin Knowlton discusses why she entered the field of oncology, and her care of breast cancer patients.
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- 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.