Dr. Christina Weltz, Class of 1979, was on her way to becoming a lawyer when a chance encounter with a brave young boy changed the course of her life. “The title of my story might be ‘Your Plans May Go Astray’ or ‘Follow Your Heart,’” stated Dr. Weltz in her captivating remarks at Upper School News on January 17.
As a student at Chapin, Dr. Weltz was entranced by politics, even interning for a senator in Washington, D.C. during her senior year. When she arrived at Harvard College in 1979, she gravitated toward classes in history and literature, hoping they would help to prepare her for law school and, eventually, a job shaping public policy.
Because Harvard required all students to live on campus, Dr. Weltz – feeling a bit stir crazy after three years – actively sought opportunities to connect with the communities of greater Cambridge and nearby Boston. Before long, as she told her audience of Class 8-12 students, she found herself volunteering at Boston Children’s Hospital on the campus of Harvard Medical School.
As she played “Go Fish” with a 7-year-old patient on the post-surgical floor one day, the attending surgeon came into the room to check on his progress. As Dr. Weltz watched in amazement, the child stood up and walked for the very first time in his life, having undergone successful surgery for a congenital hip disorder that had previously impaired his mobility. Thanks to the talented surgeon standing next to her, this boy would be able to walk, run and keep up with other children his age.
“It was very emotional,” Dr. Weltz said of the experience. “I found a broom closet and sobbed for the next two hours.” And just like that, law school and politics were off the table. Instead, she was determined to pursue a career in medicine. “Being a doctor was the most meaningful thing I could do in this world,” she said she realized, adding that her parents were “incredibly supportive” of her new plans.
This unusual senior-year change required not only additional coursework, which she completed at Harvard and Stanford University, but tenacity and perseverance, traits she said she developed at Chapin. Having no prior medical background, Dr. Weltz needed to, in essence, start from scratch. Mistakes and setbacks did not discourage her, offering the example of the embarrassing time as a first-year medical student that she asked her professor the side on which a person’s kidney is located, eliciting laughter from her Gross Anatomy classmates. Dr. Weltz attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where she “fell in love with surgery.” She then did her surgical training at Duke University, ultimately choosing to specialize in the surgical treatment of breast cancer.
In 1997 Dr. Weltz returned to New York – she and her family now live on East End Avenue near Chapin – to join the faculty of Mount Sinai Hospital, where she currently treats breast cancer patients, teaches medical students and residents, and conducts clinical research.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer found in American women and the second leading cause of cancer death in women (after lung cancer). One in eight women will be diagnosed in her lifetime. These sobering statistics compelled Dr. Weltz to specialize in this area of oncology. She knew she could help women navigate “one of the hardest times in [their] life.”
“When a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, it really comes out of nowhere,” Dr. Weltz emphasized. Being there for her patients in every way possible – from providing state-of-the-art treatment options to offering psychological and emotional support – remains the most important aspect of her work.
As a teacher, Dr. Weltz draws on her lifelong love of history and literature, which she discovered during her years at Chapin. “I teach breast cancer from a historical perspective. Prior to the 1900s, the treatment was barbaric,” she stated, describing horrific operations without anesthesia or sterile technique. Dr. Weltz also discussed William Stewart Halsted (1852 -1922) – considered the most important surgeon of his era – who introduced the groundbreaking radical mastectomy, which remained the standard treatment for breast cancer prior to the 1970s when less invasive procedures like the lumpectomy were introduced. Dr. Weltz also discussed some of the most recent scientific advances in this field as well as how women’s changing role in American society is reflected in breast cancer treatment.
A natural and reassuring speaker, Christina Weltz couldn’t be more pleased with how her professional life turned out. “I never regretted my decision and I never looked back,” she told the Upper School students and faculty.
Dr. Weltz’s political ambitions may have ceased but, in their place, a deeply fulfilling career in medicine took shape, one that makes a tremendous difference in the lives of women with breast cancer. Although she doesn’t know whatever became of the little boy she met as a volunteer so many years ago, Dr. Weltz will never forget him or that momentous day when she decided to follow her heart.