Announcing Keynote Speaker

The Miami Breast Cancer Conference® has always existed to benefit the patient. The bringing together of surgeons, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, pathologists, nurses, and healthcare practitioners of all disciplines has one specific goal: to improve patient care through professional education. It’s why our attendees come back year after year. It’s what makes this worth doing.

In 2018, the Miami Breast Cancer Conference® takes the patient focus a step further. This year’s keynote speaker, Patti Hennessy, is a wife, mother, grandmother, sister, daughter, and friend. She is the everyday woman who was living and loving her life when she was broadsided by the devastating news that she had cancer. In 2011, Patti began her battle with ovarian cancer and was surprised to learn that she carried the BRCA1 gene. This gene would affect the entire family. In 2016, early stage breast cancer was discovered; however, it recurred locally less than one year later. Just six months later, Patti learned the breast cancer was back, this time in the lung. It was a rare cancer known as metastatic, metaplastic, triple-negative breast cancer.

Mike and Patti Hennessy attended Rider University together and married in 1983. Patti worked as a paralegal and as an event/meeting planner for Johnson & Johnson’s dental division until they started their family. Patti stayed home raising their 4 children, Shannon, Ashley, Michael, and Christopher, now all involved in the family business. Meanwhile, Mike, who was born into the medical media business, started his company, which is today known as Michael J. Hennessy Associates, Inc. In 2011, Michael J. Hennessy Associates acquired the Miami Breast Cancer Conference®. Little did the family know that a short time later this oncology conference would become one with a very personal connection. Patti is the heartbeat of what makes this conference so important to the company. This year, as keynote speaker, Patti wants to share her personal journey battling cancer.

Patti, like so many breast cancer patients, is the center of her family. It is because of patients like her that we do what we do. Patti will guide us through her incredibly personal journey, with special focus on the impact of being a BRCA-positive patient. Joined by Miami Breast Cancer Conference® chair, Patrick I. Borgen, MD, Patti will lead a panel of faculty on the importance of the patient perspective and family counseling.

This year the Miami Breast Cancer Conference® is redefining the meaning of personal medicine. We couldn’t be prouder of Patti sharing her journey with all of us.