Dr. Kathleen T. Ruddy is a breast cancer surgeon, Founder and Medical Director of the Breast Service at Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, New Jersey in 1995, Founder and President of Breast Health And Healing, her private practice in New Jersey in 1999, and Founder and Executive Director of the Breast Health & Healing Foundation in 2008. 

Dr. Ruddy began her career in medicine in 1972, working as a unit clerk at the Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Virginia.   Her commitment to helping women with breast cancer began the following year when her own mother was diagnosed with the disease.  This life-threatening and life-changing event left a deep impression on Dr. Ruddy; it became the seed that eventually blossomed into a career devoted to helping other women suffering from this disease. 

In 1973 Dr. Ruddy enrolled part-time at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.  She hoped to expand her horizons and discover an educational path that would suit her interests, skills and passion for working with women. In 1977, after several years of undergraduate study at George Mason University, Dr. Ruddy discovered the path she was looking for "across the Potomac River" in the newly formed Physician Assistant Program at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.  Two years later, in 1979, she was accepted into the P.A. program and happily took her seat with fifty other students who were eager to enter the world of clinical medicine.

Dr. Ruddy received her certificate as a Physician Assistant (P.A.) in 1981 and was immediately offered a position at the GWU Student Health Department.   Although she was delighted with her job as a P.A., her formal introduction to clinical medicine was enough to convince her that she had made the right choice in pursuing a career in healthcare and furthermore, that she wanted to continue on this road but in a higher capacity.  She soon made the decision to try to get into medical school; but this would not be easy.  Medical school was extremely competitive in the 1970’s and Dr. Ruddy was already in her thirties when she received her P.A. certificate, quite old compared to other applicants who were applying to medical school at that time.  There were other obstacles:  she needed to complete the requirements for her Baccalaureate degree, and she needed to take ten pre-med courses before she would be eligible to apply to medical school.  Undaunted, Dr. Ruddy persevered.  She worked full-time as a P.A. at GWU where she was able to take advantage of tuition benefits.   She enrolled in one pre-med class every semester to ensure that she would get the grades she needed to successfully compete for a seat in medical school.   Three years later, in 1984, with a B.S. degree in hand and all pre-med courses successfully completed, Dr. Ruddy took the MCAT exam, did well, and then bravely applied to medical school.  Her years of effort and hard work were rewarded when she was accepted to the New Jersey Medical School the following year.   In 1989, seventeen years after entering medicine as a unit clerk, near the bottom of the healthcare ladder, she was awarded her Doctor of Medicine. 

Dr. Ruddy fell in love with surgery during her third year of medical school and decided that this would be her choice for residency training.  After graduating medical school in 1989  she was accepted into the busiest surgical residency program in New Jersey, the St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston.  Once again, the path she chose would not be easy:  she was the only woman in the program and she was ten years older than any of the other interns.  But since she was used to long and difficult roads she pressed on.  Five years later, in 1994, she was the only entering intern to finish as Chief Resident.  She was forty-two years old and just a little worse for wear considering the 100+ hour work weeks that were part of the time-honored rigors of surgical training. 

As Dr. Ruddy advanced in her residency program she looked for a way to marry her interest in women’s health with her love of surgery, and during an elective rotation at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center she found the answer she was looking for:  she decided to become a breast cancer surgeon. She appealed to the Chief of the Breast Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and asked him to create a special Fellowship, and then asked to be allowed to be the first person to fill that new position. Her request was granted, and she began her Fellowship on the Breast Service in July 1994. The following year, 1995, Dr. Ruddy was recruited by Cancer Treatment Centers of America to create a Breast Service for the Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville, New Jersey.  She happily accepted this wonderful opportunity, a fitting culmination to twenty-three years of hard work and perseverance.  

In 2000 Dr. Ruddy enlarged the scope of her work at Clara Maass Medical Center by creating her own private practice at the hospital.  By that time Dr. Ruddy was beginning to develop a new vision about how best to deal with the growing epidemic of breast cancer, one that involved trying to understand its causes rather than focusing exclusively on its cures.  Although running the Breast Service and caring for patients in her private practice kept her busy and fulfilled, Dr. Ruddy began to consider how she might further expand her work to include understanding the causes of breast cancer, in an effort to try to prevent the disease. 

In 2006 Dr. Ruddy learned about a new graduate program at McGill University in Montreal, the International Masters for Health Leadership (IMHL).  She felt that the IMHL would be an excellent, next best step on her career path, an opportunity to combine her expertise as a breast cancer surgeon with her vision to transform the approach to breast cancer that would emphasize prevention as the best way to "treat" the disease.  In the spring of 2006 Dr. Ruddy was accepted into the first class of the IMHL and in June she joined seventeen other candidates from around the world to begin  eighteen months of intensive study.  Dr. Ruddy's goal was to create an International Breast Service, one that would bring the most innovative breast cancer treatments and prevention modalities to women in emerging countries.

In September 2006 Dr. Ruddy and her fellow IMHL candidate, Dr. Salman Al Sabah, a surgeon and member of the Royal Family of Kuwait, joined forces to create the first Breast Service at the Royal Hayat Hospital for women in Kuwait City.  In the spring of 2007 the Kuwait Cancer Center, under the direction of the Ministry of Health and with the guidance of Drs. Ruddy and Al Sabah, created the country’s first integrated Breast Service.  Also, in 2007 Dr. Ruddy and two other IMHL candidates, Drs. William Mbabazi and Possy Mugyenyi, received a grant from the World Health Organization to provide mammogram screening for women in Uganda.  Dr. Ruddy’s anchoring project for the IMHL, to create an International Breast Service, seemed to be off to a good start with the inauguration of these first two projects. 

The broad multi-cultural opportunities and educational experiences of the IMHL helped to inform and reinforce Dr. Ruddy’s own vision for a global initiative focused on the prevention of breast cancer. After more than two decades in the surgical trenches, working to cure women with breast cancer, Dr. Ruddy discovered her true vocation, her life’s work:  to help as many women as possible avoid breast cancer altogether, to work for the "pure cure" – prevention.  And so, in April 2008, just prior to receiving her International Masters for Health Leadership, Dr. Ruddy created the Breast Health & Healing Foundation whose mission is to discover the causes of breast cancer and to use that knowledge to prevent the disease. 

Dr. Ruddy is devoted to helping women all over the world find a cure for breast cancer, but after more than twenty years in the struggle to end breast cancer forever Dr. Ruddy has come to the realization that treatment is simply not enough:  we must understand the causes of breast cancer — as a prelude to prevention — if we are to save as many lives as possible. 

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