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HEALTH & WELLNESS Dr. Karyn Hansen Dr. Karyn Hansen greets a Seasons reporter in the conference room near her office at the Karl J. Krapek, Sr. Comprehensive Women’s Health Center at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center, a state-of-the-art building connected to the main hospital by a walkway and bridge stretching across Collins Street. The gynecologic oncologist has changed out of her scrubs for the meeting and instead dons a classic navy cardigan over a cream-colored blouse and grey wool pants. Twenty minutes into the interview, however, she is called to the OR and is back in her scrubs, ready to consult on a complicated, robotic-assisted laparoscopic hysterectomy. Back in medical school, it was the excitement of surgery that lured Dr. Hansen; in fact, she initially thought she wanted to work in trauma. But once she got to her first clinical rotation—obstetrics/gynecology—during her third year of medical school, she knew she had found her calling. “Ob/Gyn suited me. It had the surgery, but it also had the continuity of care,” she says. Dr. Hansen was drawn to gynecologic oncology in part because of its added emotional component. “I’m a frank and realistic person, and I try to be really honest with patients about their prognosis and what we can and can’t do to help them,” she says. “I like to give my patients some autonomy even in a bad situation, to allow them to make decisions that are right for them as individuals.” Longstanding relationships Dr. Hansen says she appreciates the longstanding relationships that oncologists have with their patients. “Sometimes that’s because they have the type of cancer that is curable, and they follow up with us for surveillance. Other patients have the kind of cancer that is treatable, but not curable, and therefore get treated on and off for many years,” she explains. She says the most difficult part of her job is telling people they have advanced-stage cancer, particularly when they are not emotionally prepared for it. “The most rewarding part,” she says, “is even in those hard situations, feeling like your patients and their families really trust your opinion and advice.” Dr. Hansen, who grew up in New Hampshire and went to college in South Carolina, says she took a non-traditional route to medicine, working first as a pharmaceutical sales rep and then attending graduate school to study microbiology before heading to the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. She met her husband, Jonathan Shepherd, a urogynecologist also at Saint Francis, while she was a thirdyear medical student and he was in South Carolina finishing his residency. She continued on to Magee-Womens Hospital at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for both her residency and her gynecologic oncology fellowship, while her husband was completing his urogynecology fellowship and then faculty appointment there. After completing her training, she and her husband decided to pursue positions on the East Coast to be nearer to family. Saint Francis proved a good fit for both of them. Ovarian cancer Though ovarian cancer is not a particularly common cancer—there are only about 22,000 cases diagnosed in the United States per year (compared to more than 250,000 cases of breast cancer)—women with ovarian cancer compose a large proportion of Dr. Hansen’s patients. “Although it is often not curable, ovarian cancer is highly treatable,” she says. “Women get treated and then may not have evidence of disease for a while, then they recur, and we treat them again. People can live quite a long time, even with advanced ovarian cancer,” she says. Still, ovarian cancer is the most deadly gynecologic cancer because it is usually diagnosed at a late stage, as women rarely show early symptoms, and there is no good screening tool. This is why it is so important for women to know their family history, according to Dr. Hansen. Women with a first-degree relative who has had ovarian cancer (and 38 Seasons of West Hartford • SPRING 2017
Written by Lori Miller Kase Photography by Seshu Photography CONTINUITY OF CARE: Dr. Karyn Hansen, a gynecologic oncologist at Saint Francis, says the most difficult part of her job is telling people they have advanced-stage cancer. “The most rewarding part is even in those hard situations, feeling like your patients and their families really trust your opinion and advice.” Seasons of West Hartford • SPRING 2017 39
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