restore me after breast cancerontario's first physician-lead areola tattoo restorative program. covered by provincial health care, in a hospital setting
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Meet Our Team
Dr Alexandra Ginty
Founder & Former Medical Director |
Georgette Dunn
Director of Education |
Dr Amita Mall
Medical Director & Medical Tattooist
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Meet Our Team
Understanding your choices
Choices of reconstruction are dependent on tumor size, type, markers, duration of treatments, radiation recommendations, patient body habitus and underlying medical conditions.
All reconstruction depends on good blood supply and smoking cigarettes is a major risk factor which will also affect options and timing.
Restorative Nipple areola tattooing is a very low risk procedure that uses the art of realism to restore the areola and nipple area after breast cancer surgery or nipple necrosis for any reason.
All reconstruction depends on good blood supply and smoking cigarettes is a major risk factor which will also affect options and timing.
Restorative Nipple areola tattooing is a very low risk procedure that uses the art of realism to restore the areola and nipple area after breast cancer surgery or nipple necrosis for any reason.
When should we be discussing breast reconstruction in the treatment journey?
Be an advocate for standard of care
Let's talk about what we do and why we do it?
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Why do we have to remove a nipple? What is nipple reconstruction? When does reconstruction planning happen? Does areola tattooing hurt? |
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From Breast Surgeon to Plastic Surgeon to Tattooing Physician
- understanding the same journey
Continuity of CareContinuity of care from breast surgeon to plastic surgeon to areola tattooist in the same operating room understanding the patient's journey and complications.
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Safe and trusted environmentBreast cancer treatment leaves the patient fragile and lost. Many say they would not go outside the hospital to seek tattoo follow-up. Many expert tattooists provide excellent quality care. Our patients deserve the best in a safe and relaxing environment.
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Equitable Financial AccessAll aspects of reconstruction contribute to improved wellbeing including tattooing. Areola tattooing can improve the patient's sexuality and confidence by 50%. It must be offered to all patients to complete the restorative process.
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How do we decide on our choices?
Is Breast reconstruction covered by OHIP?
Is it cosmetic?
It is the right of every woman after breast cancer reconstruction
to have restoration of their body's surgical scars and defects.
We want to emphasize there is nothing cosmetic about this.
It is a restoration and reconstruction of what was taken away.
You will never be the same after breast cancer but this team hope to be part of giving back your wholeness and confidence as a woman after the cancer treatments took you apart.
Why we made this website. Reconstruction discussion is part of the breast cancer journey at the time of diagnosis. Patients can advocate for this discussion.
Beautiful after breast cancer: Tattooing, breast reconstruction help Oakville patients heal BY KIM ARNOTTOCTOBER 13, 20239:00 AM
Expand Oakville News. KA.
A breast cancer diagnosis is always going to be a terrifying thing. The disease – estimated to strike 1 in 8 Canadian women during their lifetimes, according to the Canadian Cancer Society – is the most common cancer among women. But survival rates for breast cancer have been improving since 1986. Nowadays, 89 per cent of women will survive for at least five years after diagnosis. For a trio of female doctors at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (OTMH), successful treatment isn’t just about eradicating cancer. It’s also about making the following years as happy and beautiful as possible. "Five years down the line, you shouldn’t be looking in the mirror, feeling unhappy," says Oakville oncological surgeon Nicole Callan. "Breast cancer already scars you emotionally – you shouldn’t be scarred physically too."
Areola tattooing transforms "bald breasts" That’s a message that Dr. Alexandra Ginty knows and lives. The Oakville family physician and surgical assistant at OTMH underwent a double mastectomy 13 years ago and knows the emotional toll the surgery takes on survivors. In the years since, she has channelled her experience and empathy into making a difference for women who have survived breast cancer. Last February, Ginty began offering OHIP-funded areola tattooing for women whose breast reconstruction surgery has left them with "bald breasts." Provided in an out-patient clinic at OTMH, she says the service is not decorative but the final stage of breast reconstruction "Psychologically, this is such a transformative thing," she says. "It’s so satisfying to give someone their body back." Since the clinic’s launch, she has tattooed about 40 women who otherwise would have had to pay out-of-pocket for the service and venture outside of the medical system into a setting that may feel less safe. For patient Vanessa Walker, the tattoo completed a breast reconstruction that has restored her confidence. Diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer at 33, Walker underwent a bilateral mastectomy. After reconstruction and areola tattooing, she’s now happy with what she sees in the mirror "Now you can see an actual breast, not the fact that I had surgery," she says.
You’d fix a nose. Why not a breast? While a mastectomy may be a life-saving surgery, it is also a life-changing surgery. Knowing that, Oakville plastic surgeon Lauren Willoughby is passionate about giving women the choice to have immediate breast reconstruction done as part of the procedure. Restoring a breast is as essential as any other body part, she says. "You wouldn’t remove a cancer from a nose and not reconstruct it. A breast is a just as much a part of a woman as an arm or a nose. When you’re removing a body part, you should reconstruct it." She works alongside Callan to help women have a seamless transition through cancer and into healing. Immediate reconstruction also offers the best opportunity to preserve a woman’s own tissue and skin and reduces the likelihood of needing another surgery, says Callan. For Julia Hanna, the one-stop surgery is as much about mental health as physical appearance. Oakville News. KA Dr. Lauren Willoughby, Julia Hanna, Vanessa Walker and Dr. Alexandra Ginty Diagnosed with breast cancer last winter, the North Oakville restauranteur and former mayoral candidate says she healed more quickly because she didn’t face the reminder of her illness each time she got dressed or looked in the mirror. Hanna praises the seamless treatment and support of the trio of OTMH doctors. She is making it her mission to fundraise for local women’s health issues. "You have to take what life throws at you – with or without a breast," she says. "But it’s easier with a breast.”
10/18/2023 The Medical Post
Ontario physician is first in province to offer areola tattooing for cancer patients
Dr. Alexandra Ginty, a breast cancer survivor, has become the first physician in Ontario to perform areola tattooing on post-mastectomy cancer patients.
Dr. Ginty, who is a breast cancer survivor and an artist, has undergone extensive training to become the first physician in Halton Region to be certified in this speciality, as reported by CityNews.
“I just knew if there was someone who could do this, it would be me. But it was really hard getting someone to teach me, to believe in me being a tattooist and take me on a journey that was 200 hours of training,” Dr. Ginty told CityNews. “It’s a really interesting journey because art therapy became the way that I psychologically healed from my cancer. And I got back into art again.”
Dr. Ginty is providing the service at the outpatient medical-surgical clinic at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital, where she is a family physician and surgical assistant.
The procedure involves using pigment to simulate the physical dimensions and depth of an areola, according to a news release from Halton Healthcare.
While breast reconstruction post-mastectomy is covered for patients under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP), areola tattooing is covered only if it is performed by a physician, Halton Healthcare noted.
“A lot of people know about surgery and chemo, but they don’t put breast reconstruction into the equation,” Dr. Ginty said in the release.
“Areola tattooing is not decorative; it’s the end of the restorative phase. Bringing this into the hospital as a funded service is about equity and telling people we feel this is part of the process of healing . . . the psychological part.”
Dr. Ginty has so far performed the procedure on 72 people, according to CityNews.
One of those people is Heidi Corley.
“When I look in the mirror, I’m back to who I was before. I don’t look at myself in the mirror anymore and say, ‘Oh, here’s a cancer patient’ . . . I am back to me.”
