Some surgeons are so respected that doctors will move across the country to work with them and patients across the nation will seek them out.

Mercy Medical Center said it believes Dalliah Mashon Black is one of those doctors.

Black was recruited from Connecticut this year to work at Mercy because of her expertise in breast cancer tumor biology and cancer behaviors in women of different racial backgrounds.

“Breast cancer is more commonly found in Caucasian women, but African-American women have higher death rates than Caucasian women,” Black said. Types of breast cancer more commonly found in young black women tend to be more aggressive.

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“They don’t respond well to treatments, therefore black women have a harder time fighting breast cancer.”

Economic factors also weigh heavily against black women.

“Many black women are at a disadvantage in terms of health care because they may not have a primary physician or may be undertreated and less likely to get called back if screening is abnormal,” Black said.

Many black women live with breast cancer and don’t even know they have it, Black said.

Racial disparities exist between cancer patients, the mortality rates have dropped 20 percent among white women and only 3 percent among black women depending upon screening, diagnosis, treatment and tumor biology, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Black’s knowledge of cancer behaviors is expected to spark the interest of patients and other health professionals, said hospital spokesman Dan Collins, including patients who want better treatment and doctors determined to work side by side with the best in the field.

“Dr. Black’s medical skills will serve as a magnet element, to attract other top physicians and new patients to Mercy. We want to bring in the best and the brightest,” he said.

Prior to her employment at Mercy, Black was assistant professor of surgery at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. She received her medical degree from the University of  North Carolina School of Medicine, completed her residency at the University of North Carolina Hospitals at Chapel Hill and her fellowship in Breast Surgical Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Black encourages women to:

-  Avoid consuming more than two glasses of alcohol a day

-  Maintain a healthy weight

-  Get an annual mammogram

- Perform a monthly self-examination.

“Some women dread the pain associated with mammograms, but the benefit you get from an early detection of cancer is far greater than to go years without getting one and potentially having a problem,” she said.

marika.brown@baltimoreexaminer.com